---
title: 'Engineering Manager, Research at Decagon'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-research-decagon-san-francisco-p4c837fyqnby'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Engineering Manager, Research at Decagon

- **Company:** [Decagon](https://feeny.ai/companies/decagon)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $280k–$430k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-09-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/decagon/c7cd7c5b-0ec9-44cd-9e74-c973acdfa4ba

## Job description

## About Decagon

Decagon is the leading conversational AI platform empowering every brand to deliver concierge customer experiences.

Our technology enables industry-defining enterprises like Avis Budget Group, Block’s Cash App and Square, Chime, Oura Health, and Hunter Douglas to deploy AI agents that power personalized, deeply satisfying interactions across voice, chat, email, SMS, and every other channel.

We’re building a future where customer experiences are being redefined from support tickets and hold music to faster resolutions, richer conversations, and deeper relationships. We’re proud to be backed by world-class investors who share that vision, including a16z, Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Coatue, and Index Ventures, along with many others.

We’re an in-office company, driven by a shared commitment to excellence and velocity. Our values — Just Get It Done, Invent What Customers Want, Winner’s Mindset, and The Polymath Principle — shape how we work and grow as a team.

## About the Team

Read more about the research team's work here: https://decagon.ai/blog/introducing-decagon-labs

The Research team develops the model and decision-making stack that powers Decagon’s conversational agents for enterprise support. We research, adapt, and implement state-of-the-art techniques in model training, prompting, orchestration, and evaluation in order to make our agents more accurate, robust, and efficient in real-world deployments.

Our goal is to push the frontier of applied conversational AI: agents that reliably understand nuanced intent, track long context, and take the right actions under uncertainty. We measure success the way customers feel it: higher resolution rates, better user satisfaction, and consistent behavior at scale.

## About the Role

We’re looking for a manager to lead and grow a team within Decagon Research. You’ll own the team and technical roadmap for an area spanning model post-training, evaluation, safety, speech, or agent behavior, driving ambitious ideas from research to reliable production impact.

Managers here operate with high ownership and technical depth while helping their teams move quickly and maintain a high quality bar. You’ll create clarity in ambiguous research areas, develop exceptional engineers, and align the team’s work with the product outcomes that matter most to customers.

In this role, you will

- Build, manage, and develop a high-performing team of research engineers through hiring, coaching, performance management, and career development
- Own the technical direction and roadmap for your area, prioritizing the highest-leverage investments across models, evaluation, safety, speech, and agent systems
- Turn open-ended research directions into focused programs with clear hypotheses, milestones, decisions, and measures of production impact
- Stay close to the technical work through architecture and experiment reviews, debugging, and individual contribution
- Set a high bar for experimental rigor, reproducibility, evaluation quality, engineering execution, and safe model rollouts
- Partner across Infrastructure, Agent Platform, Product Engineering, Product, and customer-facing teams to move research into production

## Your background looks something like this

- 5+ years of industry experience building machine-learning systems involving language models, speech, agents, or model infrastructure
- 1+ years of people management experience, with a strong individual-contributor background
- Deep experience post-training, evaluating, deploying, or serving foundation models at scale
- Strong technical judgment and a track record of translating ambiguous research ideas into measurable product outcomes
- Experience hiring, coaching, and developing technical talent, with clear communication across research, engineering, product, and executive stakeholders

Even better if you have

- A record of influential research, open-source contributions, or production ML systems with significant real-world impact

## Compensation

$280K – $430K + Offers Equity

This range reflects the expected compensation for this role. Compensation within the range is determined based on experience, skills, and the scope of responsibilities, with flexibility for candidates who demonstrate exceptional impact.

In addition to base salary, we offer competitive equity. Final compensation may vary based on location within the United States.

## Benefits

We proudly offer the following benefits for our full-time employees:

- Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits for you and your family
- Life Insurance and Disability Benefits
- Retirement Plan (e.g., 401K, pension)
- Parental Leave
- Fertility and family building benefits through Carrot
- Monthly stipend to support your wellness, lifestyle, and work-life balance
- Daily lunches and snacks in the office to keep you at your best
- Take what you need vacation policy (subject to local requirements; UK employees receive 25 days of statutory leave)

These benefits are described in more detail in Decagon’s policies, may vary by location, and can change at any time according to applicable compensation and benefits plans.

## About Decagon

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Decagon is an AI customer support platform that enables enterprises to deploy autonomous AI agents for concierge-level customer experiences across voice, chat, email, and other channels.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B, $481M total funding)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Jesse Zhang (CEO) and Ashwin Sreenivas (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: AI-powered customer support software / Enterprise conversational AI
- **Target customers**: B2B, mid-market to enterprise (e.g., Avis Budget Group, Chime, Oura Health, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Hunter Douglas, Duolingo, Curology, Valon)
- **Mission or purpose**: "Build a future where customer experiences are being redefined from support tickets and hold music to faster resolutions, richer conversations, and deeper relationships."

## Products & Services
- **[Decagon AI Concierge Platform](https://decagon.ai/)**: Unified omnichannel AI agent handling chat, voice, and email — powered by natural-language Agent Operating Procedures (AOPs) for workflow definition and an analytics suite for continuous optimization.
- **[Decagon Voice AI](https://decagon.ai/product/voice)**: Fast, intelligent voice agents built for natural dialog, fully customizable to brand tone, claiming 50%+ deflection on voice and 70% chat+voice resolution.
- **[Decagon Chat](https://decagon.ai/product/chat)**: Flexible, personalized chat agent that executes complex workflows reliably, claiming 80% deflection rate and 32% cost reduction.
- **[Decagon Email](https://decagon.ai/product/email)**: Always-on, intuitive email agent that resolves issues quickly, reporting 1M+ revenue from fully AI-handled conversations and 3x CSAT increase.
- **[Duet Autopilot](https://decagon.ai/)**: Newer product tier (announced 2025) for autonomous, end-to-end handling of customer interactions.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: ~$4.5B (Series B round led by Coatue Management and Index Ventures, tripling valuation in under six months as of late 2025/early 2026) [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-decagon-2026)
- **Total Funding**: USD $481,000,000 across 7 rounds [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/decagon-ai)
  - Seed (Jun 2024): $5M led by a16z
  - Series B (Oct 2024): $65M led by Bain Capital Ventures
  - Venture Round (Nov 2025): undisclosed amount, 1 investor
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Accel, Bain Capital Ventures, Coatue Management, Index Ventures, Elad Gil [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-decagon-2026)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 311 employees (+325.3% YoY) as of mid-2026
  - 100+ enterprise customers
  - Over 60,000 LinkedIn followers (+274.8% yearly growth)
  - Active in 7 countries (US, UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Philippines, Nigeria)
  - 134 active job postings (+332.3% yearly growth)
  - Key talent sourced from Verkada, Scale AI, Bain & Company, Glean, Databricks, xAI, Salesforce, TikTok, Five9

## Competitive Advantages
- **Proven enterprise adoption**: Deployed at major brands (Chime, Avis, Oura, Duolingo) with highly publicized results — e.g., Oura reported 95% chat+voice resolution, Curology 80% deflection, and one customer saw "10x higher deflection at launch than anticipated" [decagon.ai](https://decagon.ai/)
- **Omnichannel by design**: Unified chat, voice, and email on a single intelligence layer — a rare end-to-end approach vs. point solutions for just chat or voice.
- **Natural-language AOPs**: Agent Operating Procedures in plain English, enabling non-engineers to define and iterate on agent workflows without engineering support — faster iteration and less vendor lock-in.
- **Elite investor syndicate**: Backed by the top enterprise AI investors (a16z, Accel, Coatue, Index, Bain Capital Ventures), signaling strong confidence and access to a broad network.
- **Founding team pedigree**: Founded by former executives/engineers from high-growth AI companies (Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas have backgrounds from fast-scaling AI startups).

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling enterprise sales**: Actively hiring Enterprise Account Executives, Implementation Managers, and Strategic Account Directors [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/decagon-ai)
- **Deepening voice capabilities**: Staff Research Engineer and Senior Research Engineer for Voice + Speech roles signal heavy investment in voice AI quality and differentiation [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/decagon-ai)
- **International expansion**: Established offices in London (UK), plus presence in Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, and Philippines — recruiting across all regions.
- **Product velocity**: Emphasis on rapid iteration and continuous improvement of agents; building out analytics suite (Decagon Insights) and Duet Autopilot for fully autonomous operation.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as "Eng-Driven, Ship Fast, Equity, Product Impact" by employees. Values include: "Just get it done," "Invent what customers want," "Winner's mindset," "The Polymath Principle" (cross-functional collaboration) [decagon.ai/careers](https://decagon.ai/careers)
- **Compensation**: "We hire the best and treat them accordingly" — competitive compensation philosophy; Glassdoor rating: 3.9/5.0 (257 reviews), Compensation: 5.0/5.0 in Glassdoor-style internal review [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-decagon-2026)
- **Benefits**:
  - 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage for dependents
  - 401k and FSA/commuter benefits
  - Flexible PTO + company-wide winter break shutdown
  - Free daily lunches, dinner, and snacks at HQ
  - Wellness programs and company events [decagon.ai/careers](https://decagon.ai/careers)
- **Remote/Hybrid/Office**: HQ in San Francisco (2261 Market Street); London office (50 York Way). Roles span remote, hybrid, and on-site options based on job postings.
- **Engineering culture**: 89 technical employees (21% of workforce), Staff/Senior Research Engineer roles for Voice + Speech; "Build, optimize, and scale AI agents" is core identity. Alumni go on to OpenAI, Datadog, Postman, Accel — strong talent pipeline.
- **Growth trajectory**: 134 open roles; 300+% headcount growth YoY; $4.5B valuation at 3 years old — extremely high-growth environment ideal for career acceleration.
- **Notable perk**: "We’re building a future where customer experiences are being redefined from support tickets and hold music to faster resolutions" — employees report high product impact and ownership.

## Sources
1. [decagon.ai](https://decagon.ai/)
2. [decagon.ai/careers](https://decagon.ai/careers)
3. [LinkedIn - Decagon](https://www.linkedin.com/company/decagon-ai)
4. [jobsbyculture.com - Working at Decagon 2026](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-decagon-2026)
5. [dealroom.co - Decagon profile](https://dealroom.co/companies/decagon/)

## Other roles at Decagon

- [Research Engineer, Audio and Speech](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-audio-and-speech-decagon-san-francisco-b8k43356nm2g) — San Francisco, CA
- [Research Engineer, Safety](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-safety-decagon-san-francisco-ddrp6e2n67s0) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Research Engineer, Safety](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-research-engineer-safety-decagon-san-francisco-25bb5evf72c7) — San Francisco, CA
- [Growth Marketing Manager, Paid Social](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-manager-paid-social-decagon-san-francisco-3ejhkdsjb3pp) — San Francisco, CA
- [AI Acceleration Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-acceleration-engineer-decagon-san-francisco-2v40s7e6zm4t) — San Francisco, CA
- [Business Systems Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/business-systems-manager-decagon-san-francisco-eza2f6xc5sb5) — San Francisco, CA
- [Growth Engineer, Web & Growth Products](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-engineer-web-growth-products-decagon-san-francisco-8p1n2g7bcvm1) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Agent Product Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-agent-product-manager-decagon-brazil-pm3tnqz1p795) — Brazil
- [Senior Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-decagon-san-francisco-94fab3a5c125) — San Francisco, CA
- [Strategic Account Director](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-account-director-decagon-amsterdam-cw9w6z6pdv7c) — Amsterdam, Netherlands