Research Science Intern (PhD)

Research Science Intern — DAIR Scholars Program

Datadog AI Research (DAIR) is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to support PhD students researching open problems grounded in ongoing work at Datadog. This is a full-time, hybrid internship available in New York, NY, and Pittsburgh, PA.

Research Focus

DAIR addresses practical challenges in observability and software operation, including detecting and diagnosing failures, understanding complex production environments, and helping engineers operate software effectively. Research includes specialized foundation models, post-training and evaluating AI agents, and frontier-scale machine learning systems.

Projects are shaped with a DAIR mentor and the student's CMU faculty advisor, with access to large-scale compute, real-world data, and infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Own a research project end to end: frame the question, run experiments, and write up findings.
• Collaborate directly with a DAIR mentor working on the same problem while staying connected to your faculty advisor and lab.
• Publish research and use the work toward your dissertation.
• Help research reach production when successful.

Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in a Carnegie Mellon PhD program in machine learning, computer science, statistics, or a related field.
• Depth in at least one area relevant to the lab's research.
• Comfort running real experiments, including training models, working with GPUs, and reading and reimplementing recent papers.
• Evidence of research ability through conference or workshop papers, preprints, open-source contributions, or a lab project you can discuss in depth.
• Ability to explain why a research problem matters and what would change if it were solved.
• Honest empirical reporting, including unsuccessful ablations.
• Support from your faculty advisor.

A long publication record, prior observability, monitoring, or SRE experience, and a perfect match to the research areas are not required. Candidates who do not meet every qualification are encouraged to apply.

Compensation and Benefits

• Estimated annual salary: $110,000–$140,000 USD, based on skills, qualifications, and experience.
• Additional compensation elements may be available.
• Healthcare, paid time off, and travel and relocation benefits, if eligible.

Application and Eligibility

• Some roles may require eligibility for US government authorizations under export control regulations, including potential ITAR-related requirements.
• If possible, apply using a personal email address rather than a university email address.
• Application information is processed under Datadog's Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. Candidates are directed to Datadog's Interviewing at Datadog AI Guidelines for its AI policy.
• Assistance completing the application is available through the accommodation request form; it cannot be used for application status inquiries.