Lead AI Agents Research & Post-Training

Datadog, Inc.; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 244,000 - 305,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

New hire stock equity (RSUs)

Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Healthcare benefits

Dental coverage

Parental planning

Mental health benefits

401(k) plan and match

Paid time off

Fitness reimbursements

Job summary

Datadog AI Research (DAIR) seeks a Research Manager to lead a team advancing reinforcement learning, post-training methods, and autonomous agents. You will shape technical direction, mentor researchers, and collaborate with product and engineering to translate research into scalable Datadog capabilities.

You will guide experiments, build environments, and publish work while maintaining a strong hands‑on research identity as a technical leader.

Qualifications

• PhD in Computer Science, ML, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• Deep expertise in reinforcement learning, AI agents, post-training, or generative modeling.
• Experience leading technically ambitious research at scale.
• Hands-on experience designing or implementing RL systems and evaluation frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead research in agent post-training and reinforcement learning, setting the technical direction for ambitious programs.
• Mentor researchers and research engineers, shaping strategy, experimentation, and model development.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to translate research into Datadog capabilities.
• Present at conferences and contribute to open-source model artifacts and benchmarks.

Skills

Reinforcement learning

Research leadership

Mentoring researchers

Hands-on ML systems

Technical direction

Education

PhD in Computer Science, ML, or related field

Tools

Python

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Experimentation frameworks

Job description

Datadog AI Research (DAIR) seeks a Research Manager to lead a team advancing reinforcement learning, post-training methods, and autonomous agents. You will shape technical direction, mentor researchers, and collaborate with product and engineering to translate research into scalable Datadog capabilities.

You will guide experiments, build environments, and publish work while maintaining a strong hands‑on research identity as a technical leader.