AI Research Engineer – Datadog AI Research (DAIR) – Datadog

New York, New York, USA

As a research engineer on our team, you will partner with research scientists to turn research ideas into working systems; building the data, tooling, and infrastructure that enable rapid iteration, trustworthy evaluation, and a smooth path from prototype to production.

Building on our proven track record of AI-powered solutions (e.g.,Bits AI,Watchdog, andToto), Datadog AI Research is tackling high-risk, high-reward projects grounded in real-world challenges in cloud observability and security.

We are currently focused on three key research areas:

Observability Foundation Modelsa Building state-of-the-art models for advanced forecasting, anomaly detection, and multi-modal telemetry analysis (logs, metrics, traces, etc.). These models will also provide the foundation for our agents (described below) to natively analyze telemetry data.

Observability Foundation Modelsa Building state-of-the-art models for advanced forecasting, anomaly detection, and multi-modal telemetry analysis (logs, metrics, traces, etc.). These models will also provide the foundation for our agents (described below) to natively analyze telemetry data.

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Autonomous Agentsa Creating AI agents to automatically detect, diagnose, and resolve incidents in production environments, pushing the boundaries of multi-step planning, reasoning, and domain-specific knowledge.

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Autonomous Agentsa Creating AI agents to automatically detect, diagnose, and resolve incidents in production environments, pushing the boundaries of multi-step planning, reasoning, and domain-specific knowledge.

Production Code Repair Agentsa Developing agents and models that leverage code, logs, runtime data, and other signals to identify, fix, and even preempt performance issues and security vulnerabilities in production code.

Production Code Repair Agentsa Developing agents and models that leverage code, logs, runtime data, and other signals to identify, fix, and even preempt performance issues and security vulnerabilities in production code.

What Youall Do:

Build and operate datasets, training and evaluation pipelines, benchmarks, and internal tooling

Implement models, run experiments at scale, and profile for reliability, performance, and cost

Orchestrate distributed training and distributed RL with Ray, including scheduling, scaling, and failure recovery

Make the research stack observable, reproducible, and easier to use

Establish rigorous automated benchmarks and regression tests for forecasting, anomaly detection, multi-modal analysis, agents, and code repair tasks

Collaborate with Research Scientists, Product, and Engineering to integrate advanced AI capabilities into Datadogas product ecosystem and to harden prototypes into reliable services

Contribute high-quality code, documentation, and open-source artifacts that enable the community and internal teams to reproduce, extend, and evaluate results

Who You Are:

You have strong software engineering skills with experience in domains such as observability, SRE, or security

You have depth in distributed computing and ML systems for training and inference at scale; experience with Ray, Slurm, or similar frameworks is a plus

You are proficient in Python, familiar with a systems language (e.g., Rust, C++, or Go), and you are comfortable with modern cloud and data infrastructure

You have practical experience implementing and operating ML training and inference systems (e.g., PyTorch or JAX), including containerization, orchestration, and GPU acceleration

You are familiar with efficient training, fine-tuning, and inference techniques for large foundation models

You can explain design and performance trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences

You have a strong interest in open-science and open-source contributions, including establishing rigorous benchmarks and sharing artifacts with the community

Bonus Points:

You have a demonstrated ability to bridge cutting-edge research prototypes and real-world product applications, ideally with large foundation models, generative AI agents, or domain-specific LLM deployments

You are passionate about pushing the boundaries of AI while maintaining a strong focus on customer impact, scalability, and responsible deployment of new technologies

You have hands-on experience with GPU programming and optimization, including experience in CUDA

You have experience writing production data pipelines and applications

You have experience supporting or contributing to research publications

Datadog values people from all walks of life. We understand not everyone will meet all the above qualifications on day one. That’s okay. If youare passionate about AI Research and want to grow your skills, we encourage you to apply.

Benefits and Growth:

Competitive global benefits

New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Opportunity to collaborate closely with colleagues across the Datadog offices in New York City and Paris

Opportunity to attend and present at conferences and meetups

Intra-departmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking

An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)

Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.

Datadog offers a competitive salary and equity package, and may include variable compensation. Actual compensation is based on factors such as the candidate’s skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, Datadog offers a wide range of best in class, comprehensive and inclusive employee benefits for this role including healthcare, dental, parental planning, and mental health benefits, a 401(k) plan and match, paid time off, fitness reimbursements, and a discounted employee stock purchase plan.

About Datadog:

Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG) is a global SaaS business, delivering a rare combination of growth and profitability. We are on a mission to break down silos and solve complexity in the cloud age by enabling digital transformation, cloud migration, and infrastructure monitoring of our customersa entire technology stacks. Built by engineers, for engineers, Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes across a wide range of industries. Together, we champion professional development, diversity of thought, innovation, and work excellence to empower continuous growth. Join the pack and become part of a collaborative, pragmatic, and thoughtful people-first community where we solve tough problems, take smart risks, and celebrate one another. Learn more about #DatadogLife onInstagram,LinkedIn,andDatadog Learning Center.

Equal Opportunity at Datadog:

Datadog is proud to offerequal employment opportunityto everyone regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, and other characteristics protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. Here are ourCandidate Legal Noticesfor your reference.

Datadog endeavors to make our Careers Page accessible to all users. If you would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the application process, please completethis form. This form is for accommodation requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.

Privacy and AI Guidelines:

Any information you submit to Datadog as part of your application will be processed in accordance with DatadogasApplicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. For information on our AI policy, please visitInterviewing at Datadog AI Guidelines.

Requisition ID: R15334