Manager I, Applied Science - Frontier Agentic Models

Datadog, Inc.; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 192,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

New hire stock equity

Employee stock purchase plan

Continuous professional development

Inclusive culture

Spring Health benefits

Competitive global benefits

Giving programs

Job summary

Datadog, Inc. is seeking an Engineering Manager I in Applied AI to lead a team of engineers and applied scientists building AI foundations and agentic systems at scale.

You will collaborate with product managers, researchers, and cross-functional partners to shape bets, define success criteria, and drive end-to-end delivery from research to production. The role emphasizes quality, latency, cost, and safety considerations.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to lead and mentor engineers in fast-moving AI domains.
• Strong technical leadership in AI/ML areas such as LLMs, RAG, semantic search, or NLP.
• Experience designing and evaluating AI systems with offline and online metrics.
• Clear product instinct and ability to frame problems and drive direction with stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of engineers and applied scientists focused on building scalable AI foundations.
• Shape bets from framing through adoption with cross-functional partners; define success criteria at each stage.
• Own end-to-end delivery of AI systems from research to production-grade reliability and performance.

Skills

People management

AI/ML leadership

Evaluation methodologies

Product strategy

AI product lifecycle

Education

BS/MS/PhD in ML, CS, Eng or related

Job description

Applied AI is where Datadog's ambitious AI bets get built and shipped (Bits Chat, updog). We sit at the intersection of research and product: turning promising capabilities from Datadog AI Research lab and the research community into production systems that reach real customers. The team builds the foundations for agentic systems capable of operating at scale in complex production environments. Current bets span agents that run autonomously at scale, context and memory layers that make those agents more intelligent over time, and tools that help customers build and validate AI-native services in production. The mandate is to move fast from idea to customer impact, and when a product finds its footing, to set it up for growth.

As an Engineering Manager I in Applied AI, you will lead a team of engineers and applied scientists working on one of these challenges. You will define technical direction, run short feedback loops, make deliberate decisions about what to pursue or stop, and work closely with product managers, research teams, and cross-functional partners to ship AI capabilities that matter.

At Datadog, we place value in our office culture, the relationships and collaboration it builds and the creativity it brings. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our Datadogs can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and develop a team of engineers and applied scientists focused on building the foundations for agents operating at scale
• Work closely with product managers, research teams, and cross-functional partners to shape the team's bets from initial framing through to broader adoption, with a clear definition of success criteria at each stage
• Own end-to-end delivery of high-quality AI systems, from early research exploration to production-grade reliability, with high standards for operational excellence, system reliability, and technical quality
• Navigate the unique challenges of shipping AI-powered products: balancing quality, latency, cost, and safety considerations. Drive evaluation and iteration practices for AI systems: define the quality bar and guide the team in building the offline and online evaluation pipelines needed to measure quality and detect drift
• Contribute to cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing across the broader AI organization
• Support career growth for engineers through coaching, feedback, and fostering a culture of experimentation, innovation, and learning. Participate in hiring and help shape the future team as the organization grows

Who You Are

• A people-focused manager with experience leading and mentoring engineers, able to develop strong engineering talent in a fast-moving domain
• A technical leader with deep expertise in one or more areas of AI or machine learning: large language models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, agentic systems, deep learning, or NLP
• Well-versed in evaluation methodologies for AI systems, both offline benchmarks and online metrics
• A strong product instinct: able to anchor early-stage work in concrete customer problems, define success criteria before writing code, and actively contribute to shaping product direction alongside product and research partners
• Experience taking AI products from 0 to 1 is strongly valued: able to bring structure to early-stage work by scoping clear hypotheses, moving quickly toward signal, and making deliberate decisions about what to pursue, pivot, or stop
• BS/MS/PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent professional experience

Benefits and Growth

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
• An inclusive company culture with the ability to join Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)
• Free, global Spring Health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+
• Competitive global benefits
• Giving programs

Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.

Datadog offers a competitive salary and equity package, and may include variable compensation. Actual compensation is based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, Datadog offers a wide range of best in class, comprehensive and inclusive employee benefits for this role including healthcare, dental, parental planning, and mental health benefits, a 401(k) plan and match, paid time off, fitness reimbursements, and a discounted employee stock purchase plan.

The reasonably estimated yearly salary for this role at Datadog is: $192,000 – $240,000 USD.

About Datadog:

Datadog is the leading observability and security platform for the AI era, providing businesses with unified visibility across the technology stack to manage complexity at scale. It brings applications, infrastructure, data, models, and security into one place, using AI to detect and resolve issues before they impact customers. Trusted globally by Fortune 500 companies and high-growth AI leaders, Datadog enables businesses to move faster with clarity and confidence. Learn more about #DatadogLife on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Datadog Learning Center.

Equal Opportunity at Datadog:

Datadog is proud to offer equal employment opportunity to everyone regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, and other characteristics protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. Here are our Candidate Legal Notices for your reference.

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