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Research Manager - Post-Training for Agents

Datadog · New York, New York, USA · On-site

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About Datadog

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About the role

As a Research Manager within Datadog AI Research (DAIR), you will lead a team working on fundamental research in post-training and autonomous agents while remaining deeply engaged in the technical direction of the work. You will advance reinforcement learning, simulated environments, synthetic data generation, and evaluation methods for agents operating across complex real-world systems. Found on 1752vc Careers, the job board for startup and VC roles.

What they're looking for

  • You hold a PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field, or have equivalent experience, with deep expertise in areas such as reinforcement learning, AI agents, post-training, or generative modeling
  • You have demonstrated the ability to lead technically ambitious research at meaningful scale, whether in an industry research lab, startup, academic environment, or another research setting
  • You have extensive hands-on experience designing or implementing reinforcement learning systems, agent training methods, simulated environments, synthetic data pipelines, or evaluation frameworks
  • You have a track record of research impact through influential publications, significant model or system contributions, widely used research artifacts, or equivalent technical achievements
  • You have operated at a senior technical level and have experience leading, mentoring, and developing teams of researchers or engineers, while remaining deeply hands-on in technical direction and execution
  • You want to develop and support a research team while maintaining a strong technical identity, and you can communicate complex research findings effectively across technical and non-technical audiences
More about this role

As a Research Manager within Datadog AI Research (DAIR), you will lead a team working on fundamental research in post-training and autonomous agents while remaining deeply engaged in the technical direction of the work. You will advance reinforcement learning, simulated environments, synthetic data generation, and evaluation methods for agents operating across complex real-world systems. You will provide technical leadership to a team of researchers and research engineers, mentor and develop highly technical talent, shape research direction, and collaborate with Datadog’s product and engineering teams to translate research advances into products. This role is designed for an exceptional researcher or technical leader who wants to maintain a strong hands-on research identity while developing and leading a high-performing team.

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

  • Lead research in agent post-training and reinforcement learning, setting the technical direction for ambitious...

Read the full posting on Datadog's site ↗

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