About us
Portland AI Engineers is a community of software developers at all experience levels exploring the frontiers of generative AI through hands-on experimentation. We're builders who leverage cutting-edge models—from frontier APIs to on-device, LLMs to multimodal—to create practical applications ranging from personal hobby projects to enterprise-scale solutions. Join us to share discoveries, compare approaches, and push the boundaries of what's possible in this rapidly evolving field.
What is an AI Engineer? An AI Engineer is a software developer who integrates existing language model capabilities into products that solve real-world problems. We are not pre-training models or delving deep into data science—we're focused on applying our foundational software development skills to harness generative AI and its surrounding tools ecosystem to build scalable, user-centric applications.
"In numbers, there's probably going to be significantly more AI Engineers than there are ML engineers / LLM engineers. One can be quite successful in this role without ever training anything."
— Andrej Karpathy, Formerly OpenAI, Tesla
Upcoming events
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Portland AI Engineers Feb 2026 Meeting
Multnomah County Library Albina Branch, 205 NE Russell St, Portland, OR, US=== RSVP HERE ====
Join us for a unique double-feature session with Core Defender AI.
Part 1 — AI & Robotics Demo by Elementary School Students
Students from Core Defender AI's elementary school program will present their work in AI and robotics, including live interaction with desktop humanoid robots. Come see the next generation of engineers showing what they've built and learned.
Part 2 — How x402 and ERC-8004 Power an Agent-Only Economy
AI agents are beginning to operate independently — discovering services, deciding who to trust, and paying for what they use without human involvement. This session introduces two emerging protocols that enable agent-to-agent interaction: one focused on payments and one on identity and reputation. Together, they point toward a future where AI systems collaborate directly, unlocking new ways to build, distribute, and monetize digital services without ads, accounts, or manual approvals.
About Core Defender AI
Core Defender AI is a Hillsboro, Oregon-based technology company specializing in AI innovation, education, and responsible technology adoption. Core Defender AI is accelerated and supported by Google, NVIDIA, AWS, Microsoft, and several other leading global technology partners.Schedule:
- 5:00 - 5:30: Snacks and networking
- 5:30 - 6:30: Presentations
- 6:30 - 7:00: Wrap up and networking
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Get involved:
- Present your work at a future event: Email us at info@portlandai.engineer to discuss sharing your project or insights
- Provide feedback: Help shape our community by sharing your ideas and suggestions
- Sponsor an event: Contact us to discuss partnership opportunities
For more information and to join our community, visit portlandai.engineer
Thank you to our amazing sponsors
Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE)
Silicon Florist
AlteredCraft
O'Reilly=== RSVP HERE ====
2 attendees
Past events
10
