Research Manager - Post-Training for Agents
$244k - $305k • New York, New York, USA
Posted 4d ago
Job Location
New York, New York, USA
Tech Stack
Remote Work Policy
On-site
Categories
AI Agent Engineer
About the job
Datadog AI Research (DAIR) is seeking a Research Manager to lead a team focused on fundamental research in post-training and autonomous agents. This role involves advancing reinforcement learning, simulated environments, synthetic data generation, and evaluation methods for agents operating in complex real-world systems. The manager will provide technical leadership, mentor researchers and engineers, shape research direction, and collaborate with product and engineering teams to translate research into products. This position is ideal for an experienced researcher or technical leader who wants to maintain hands-on research involvement while leading a high-performing team.
Responsibilities
- Lead research in agent post-training and reinforcement learning, setting technical direction for research programs.
- Guide and mentor researchers and research engineers, staying involved in research strategy, experimentation, model development, and problem-solving.
- Design and advance reinforcement learning approaches, post-training methods, and training loops for agents in complex environments.
- Build simulated environments, synthetic data generation approaches, and evaluation frameworks for scalable agent training.
- Collaborate with Research, Product, and Engineering teams to translate autonomous agent advances into Datadog capabilities.
- Contribute to research publications, present at top-tier conferences, and help open-source model artifacts and benchmarks.
Requirements
- PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field, or equivalent experience with deep expertise in reinforcement learning, AI agents, post-training, or generative modeling.
- Demonstrated ability to lead technically ambitious research at scale in an industry lab, startup, or academic environment.
- Extensive hands-on experience designing or implementing reinforcement learning systems, agent training methods, simulated environments, synthetic data pipelines, or evaluation frameworks.
- Track record of research impact through influential publications, significant model/system contributions, or widely used research artifacts.
- Experience operating at a senior technical level, leading, mentoring, and developing teams of researchers or engineers while remaining hands-on.
- Desire to develop and support a research team while maintaining a strong technical identity.
- Ability to communicate complex research findings effectively across technical and non-technical audiences.
Benefits
- Competitive global benefits
- New hire stock equity (RSUs)
- Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
- Opportunity to collaborate closely with colleagues across New York City and Paris offices
- Opportunity to attend and present at conferences and meetups
- Intra-departmental mentor and buddy program
- Inclusive company culture
- Ability to join Community Guilds (employee resource groups)
- Healthcare, dental, parental planning, and mental health benefits
- 401(k) plan and match
- Paid time off
- Fitness reimbursements
- Discounted employee stock purchase plan