Manager I, Applied AI - Distilled Models

About the role

Datadog's Applied AI team builds AI capabilities that reach real customers, turning research from the AI Research lab and the wider research community into production systems. As Manager I, you will lead a team of engineers and applied scientists working on one challenge, such as cost-efficient specialized models or AI security, and define technical direction while working closely with product managers, research teams and cross-functional partners.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of engineers and applied scientists focused on cost-efficient specialized models and AI security capabilities.
• Work with product managers, research teams and partners to shape the team's bets from initial framing through to broader adoption, with clear success criteria at each stage.
• Own end-to-end delivery of high-quality AI systems, from early research exploration to production-grade reliability.
• Balance quality, latency, cost and safety when shipping AI products, and drive evaluation and iteration practices, including offline and online evaluation pipelines to measure quality and detect drift.
• Contribute to cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing across the AI organization.
• Support engineer career growth through coaching and feedback, and participate in hiring as the team grows.

Required profile

• A people-focused manager with experience leading and mentoring engineers in a fast-moving domain.
• Technical leader with deep expertise in one or more AI or ML areas: large language models, RAG, semantic search, agentic systems, deep learning or NLP.
• Strong product instinct: anchoring early work in customer problems and defining success criteria before coding.
• Experience taking AI products from 0 to 1 is strongly valued.
• BS/MS/PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.