Research Engineer

About Decagon

Decagon is a premier conversational AI platform that enables brands to deliver bespoke customer experiences. Its technology powers personalized, highly engaging interactions across multiple channels such as voice, chat, email, and SMS, serving notable clients like Avis Budget Group, Cash App, Square, Chime, Oura Health, and Hunter Douglas.

Decagon is committed to transforming customer experiences, moving beyond traditional support formats to provide faster problem resolution, enriched engagement, and stronger customer relationships. Backed by prominent investors including a16z, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Coatue, and Index Ventures, the company emphasizes excellence and speed, operating as an in-office organization with core values centered on execution, innovation, competitive spirit, and broad expertise.

About the Research Team

The research department is responsible for developing the foundational model and decision-making components that drive Decagon's conversational agents in enterprise support contexts. Their work involves applying and refining state-of-the-art methodologies in model training, prompting, orchestration, and evaluation to enhance agent accuracy, resilience, and efficiency in practical use.

The team’s mission is to advance applied conversational AI by developing agents that comprehend subtle user intent, maintain extended contextual awareness, and make appropriate decisions even with incomplete information, ultimately improving resolution rates, user satisfaction, and consistent performance at scale.

Role Overview

The Research Engineer will spearhead the development of cutting-edge conversational AI models powering Decagon's agent platform. Responsibilities include leading substantial projects aimed at enhancing reliability, functionality, and efficiency of these models, and designing innovative training, assessment, and orchestration strategies throughout the system lifecycle. This role demands engineering expertise combined with ownership of end-to-end solutions and impactful technical decision-making.

Key Responsibilities

• Guide research and engineering initiatives to advance core conversational abilities such as instruction adherence, information retrieval, memory handling, and completing tasks requiring long-term planning.
• Develop and refine comprehensive models and workflows prioritizing quality, efficiency, and user satisfaction.
• Collaborate closely with platform and product teams to seamlessly integrate new models into live systems.
• Translate complex research concepts into clearly defined incremental goals and project timelines.

Candidate Profile

• Minimum 2 years of professional experience in AI or machine learning research or engineering.
• Hands-on experience deploying large language models in production settings post-training.
• Proficiency in Python programming alongside modern machine learning frameworks and toolkits covering training, evaluation, and data processing.
• A proven history of converting experimental ideas into robust, measurable, and production-grade solutions.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary for this position ranges between $200,000 and $400,000 annually, reflecting candidate expertise, skills, and role responsibilities, with flexibility for outstanding candidates. In addition to base pay, competitive equity is provided. Final compensation may be adjusted based on the United States location of employment.

Full-time employees enjoy comprehensive benefits including a flexible vacation policy, medical, dental, and vision coverage for themselves and their families, life and disability insurance, retirement plans (e.g., 401K), parental leave, fertility and family-building support through Carrot, and daily catered meals and snacks at the office. Details and availability of benefits can vary by location and are subject to change according to company policies.