Manager I, Engineering (Applied AI)

TL;DR

Engineering Manager (Applied AI): Leading a team of engineers and applied scientists to build natural language interfaces and conversational AI systems with an accent on LLM-powered query translation and agentic architectures. Focus on designing data flywheels, developing evaluation frameworks for probabilistic AI systems, and optimizing the balance between accuracy, latency, and cost.

Location: Hybrid in New York, NY, USA

Salary: $187,000 — $240,000 USD

Company

Datadog is a monitoring and security platform for cloud-scale applications, providing observability and analytics to ensure system reliability.

What you will do

• Lead a team of engineers and applied scientists building NLQ translation systems and conversational agents.
• Own the delivery of natural language capabilities, including semantic understanding, contextual retrieval, and agentic reasoning.
• Design systems to capture user intent and feedback to create data flywheels for continuous model improvement.
• Drive evaluation and iteration practices, including building offline and online evaluation pipelines to detect drift.
• Collaborate with product managers and cross-functional teams to expand AI capabilities across the platform.
• Support career growth for engineers through coaching, feedback, and fostering a culture of experimentation.

Requirements

• Technical leadership experience in AI, machine learning, or NLP systems.
• Proven experience shipping LLM-powered products, conversational AI, or natural language interfaces.
• Strong expertise in RAG, semantic search, agentic systems, deep learning, or NLP.
• Must be based in or able to work in a hybrid capacity in New York, NY.
• Experience leading and mentoring engineers to support their professional growth.
• BS/MS/PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.

Culture & Benefits

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP).
• Comprehensive health, dental, and mental health benefits, including global Spring Health services.
• 401(k) plan with company match.
• Inclusive company culture with Community Guilds and continuous professional development.
• Hybrid workplace model designed to support work-life harmony.