Research Manager | Production Inference

MEET DEEPL DeepL is a global AI product and research company focused on building secure, intelligent solutions to complex business problems. Over 200,000 business customers and millions of individuals across 228 global markets today trust DeepL's Language AI platform for human-like translation, improved writing and real-time voice translation. Founded in 2017 by CEO Jaroslaw “Jarek” Kutylowski, DeepL now has around 1,000 passionate employees and is supported by world-renowned investors including Benchmark, IVP, and Index Ventures. Our goal is to become the global leader in trusted, intelligent AI technology, building products that drive better communication, foster connections, and create a meaningful impact. To achieve this, we need talented people like you to join our journey. If you’re ready to shape the future of AI and grow your career in a fast-moving, purpose-driven environment, DeepL is your next destination. WHAT SETS US APART What sets us apart is our blend of cutting-edge AI technology, meaningful work, and a culture where people truly thrive. We’re a team of innovators, researchers, and creators driven by a shared purpose to unlock human potential by making work simpler, smarter, and more connected. When we share what it’s like to work at DeepL, the reactions are overwhelmingly positive. This might be because of our technology that helps millions of people and businesses communicate and work better every day, or because of the trust, curiosity, and care that shape our culture. What we know for sure is this: being part of DeepL means joining a team dedicated to innovation, growth, and well-being. Discover more about life at DeepL onLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/deepl/,Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepl_official/, and our Blog https://www.deepl.com/en/blog. MEET THE TEAM BEHIND THIS JOURNEY You will lead the Production Inference team — the group responsible for the systems that serve DeepL's language AI models reliably and efficiently at scale. We sit at the intersection of research-grade technical ambition and production-grade operational discipline: our work determines whether DeepL's models reach users with the latency, reliability, and cost profile that makes commercial deployment viable. The team owns the full model serving stack — from GPU-resident inference runtimes and deployment infrastructure through to the developer platform that enables every other research team to bring their models to production. We operate within the Research organisation, with close ties to DeepL's infrastructure and platform functions, and our architectural decisions affect every product DeepL ships. The broader Research organisation publishes regularly at ACL, NeurIPS, and EMNLP, and the Production Inference team brings that same culture of rigour and innovation to the systems layer of AI. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES As Research Manager for the Production Inference team, you will own both people leadership and technical direction for a team of research scientists and ML engineers working on performance-critical model serving systems. While this is not a hands-on coding role, you will be deeply involved in technical reviews, architecture decisions, and research direction for the inference stack. You will: - Lead and develop a high-performing team of research scientists and ML engineers, building strong development plans, fostering a candid and non-retaliatory feedback culture, and maintaining high standards of technical rigour and delivery. - Own the team's research and development roadmap for production inference systems, in close collaboration with senior ICs and cross-functional stakeholders, balancing near-term reliability commitments with longer-horizon research bets on inference efficiency and architecture. - Act as the primary technical interface between the Production Inference team and adjacent functions — including foundational models research, voice research, applied research, infrastructure, and product — ensuring research output is well-scoped, well-communicated, and delivered without creating downstream bottlenecks. - Drive the reliability, efficiency, and cost performance of DeepL's model serving stack, including strategic decisions around serving infrastructure evolution (load balancing, autoscaling, runtime selection, and hardware utilisation). - Operate with a high degree of autonomy, defining the team's direction and pushing for results in an environment where requirements from product or commercial stakeholders can be ambiguous or evolving. - Play an active role in identifying, assessing, and recruiting research and engineering talent as the team continues to develop. QUALITIES WE LOOK FOR - You hold a PhD (preferable) in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, or a comparable quantitative discipline, or possess a strong ML/systems background with equivalent research depth. - You have a strong foundation in production ML s