Manager I, Applied AI - Distilled Models
Job description
Manager I in Applied AI at Datadog, leading a team of engineers and applied scientists building cost-efficient specialized models and AI security capabilities. The role sits between research and product, turning AI research into production systems for customers.
At a glance
- Employment
- Full-time
- Work mode
- Hybrid · Paris, France
- Languages
- English
What you'll do
- Lead and develop a team of engineers and applied scientists focused on cost-efficient specialized models and AI security capabilities
- 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
What we're looking for
- 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
- BS/MS/PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent professional experience
Nice to have
- 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
Your team
Applied AI
Sits 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. Builds specialized models that replace frontier models where they are not necessary, making AI capabilities faster, cheaper, and more secure.
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About Datadog
The leading observability and security platform for the AI era
Datadog provides 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.
Key facts
- observability and security platform
- Trusted globally by Fortune 500 companies and high-growth AI leaders
- Datadog operates as a hybrid workplace
What they value
- Experimentation
- Innovation
- Learning