Senior Applied Scientist - Behavior AI

About the role

Datadog's Behavior AI team builds the AI-based anomaly detection behind its security products: models that learn what normal looks like across billions of logs, events and telemetry records and flag out-of-pattern behavior in real time. The team uses small, custom models optimized for high-throughput stream processing and low cost. As a Senior Applied Scientist you will design the architecture, train models at scale and optimize them from training to production deployment.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build custom mid-size models for high-throughput stream processing and train them at scale
• Optimize models across mathematics and systems, often by reformulating them to fit hardware and software constraints
• Build training data pipelines from raw streams to training-ready datasets where they do not exist
• Work with engineering to integrate models into production, focusing on GPU utilization, latency and cost per record
• Plan the roadmap of model and system improvements
• Build an agentic layer to analyze, validate and act on model outputs
• Build lightweight interpretability tools to explain model behavior
• Maintain and monitor models, services and infrastructure, and take part in the on-call rotation

Required profile

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Machine Learning, Applied Mathematics or a related field, or equivalent experience
• Hands-on experience training and fine-tuning models at scale and deploying them under real throughput and cost constraints
• Strong applied-mathematics fundamentals and a genuine passion for applied mathematics, software design and implementation
• Ability to explain complex trade-offs clearly to engineers and product partners

Required skills

• Working knowledge of how GPUs work and experience making models run efficiently on real hardware
• Ability to build data pipelines and production code alongside models
• Bonus: experience with efficient sequence architectures, model interpretability or large-scale streaming systems

What we offer

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Professional development, product training and career pathing
• Opportunities to attend and present at conferences and publish work
• Intra-departmental mentor and buddy program, and access to employee resource groups
• Competitive global benefits, with a hybrid workplace