Manager I, Applied AI (Edge Models)

TL;DR

Manager I, Applied AI (Edge Models): Leading a team of engineers and scientists to build cost-efficient specialized AI models and security capabilities with an accent on replacing frontier models for better speed, cost, and security. Focus on end-to-end delivery of AI systems, defining evaluation pipelines, and moving from research prototypes to production-grade reliability.

Location: Hybrid (Paris, France)

Company

Datadog is a monitoring and security platform that provides observability and AI-powered insights for cloud-scale environments.

What you will do

• Lead and mentor a team of engineers and applied scientists focused on cost-efficient specialized models and AI security.
• Define technical direction and collaborate with product managers and research teams to shape AI capabilities.
• Own end-to-end delivery of high-quality AI systems from early research exploration to production-grade reliability.
• Drive evaluation and iteration practices by defining quality bars and building offline and online evaluation pipelines.
• Contribute to cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing within the broader AI organization.
• Support career growth for engineers through coaching, feedback, and hiring.

Requirements

• Must be based in or able to work from Paris, France in a hybrid setup.
• Proven experience leading and mentoring engineering talent in a fast-moving domain.
• Deep technical expertise in LLMs, RAG, semantic search, agentic systems, deep learning, or NLP.
• Strong knowledge of AI system evaluation methodologies, including offline benchmarks and online metrics.
• Product instinct to anchor technical work in concrete customer problems and define clear success criteria.
• BS/MS/PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.

Nice to have

• Experience taking AI products from 0 to 1, including scoping hypotheses and pivoting based on signals.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid workplace designed to create work-life harmony.
• Culture of experimentation, innovation, and continuous learning.
• Collaborative environment at the intersection of AI research and product shipping.