Research Manager - Post-Training for Agents

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.  What You'll Do:  Lead research in agent post-training and reinforcement learning, setting the technical direction for ambitious research programs grounded in observability and security Guide and mentor researchers and research engineers while remaining closely involved in research strategy, experimentation, model development, and technical problem-solving  Design and advance reinforcement learning approaches, post-training methods, and training loops for agents operating in complex environments  Build simulated environments, synthetic data generation approaches, and evaluation frameworks that enable scalable agent training and rigorous measurement Collaborate with cross-functional teams across Research, Product, and Engineering to translate advances in autonomous agents into scalable Datadog capabilities Contribute to research publications, present at top-tier conferences such as NeurIPS, ICLR, and ICML, and help open-source key model artifacts and benchmarks  Who You Are:  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  Datadog values people from all walks of life. We know not everyone will meet all the above qualifications on day one. That’s okay. If you’re passionate about technology and want to grow your experience, we encourage you to apply.  Benefits and Growth:  Competitive global benefits  New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) Opportunity to collaborate closely with colleagues across the Datadog offices in New York City and Paris  Opportunity to attend and present at conferences and meetups  Intra-departmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)  Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog. #LI-Hybrid 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: $244,000 — $305,000 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 applic