Staff Software Engineer - Logs Observability Pipelines
At a glance
Senior Engineering Leadership role at Datadog. New York · full-time · $244,000–$305,000 base.
techroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Make customer-run deployments work like a managed product, covering setup, upgrades, configuration, diagnostics, reliability and security
- Build systems that process, route and transform large volumes of logs across distributed customer environments
- Guide multi-team engineering projects, bringing engineers, product managers and stakeholders toward shared delivery
- Improve performance, scale and cost through capacity planning and technical trade-off analysis
- Write and debug critical code, including resolving deployment issues in customer environments
What you bring
- You have substantial experience building software that customers install and operate in their own environments
- You bring distributed-systems expertise, including high-throughput data processing and performance tuning
- You can program at the systems level in Go, Rust or C++, and understand software running across environments such as Linux
- You have production experience with Kubernetes or similar container orchestration, plus cloud infrastructure and networking troubleshooting
- You have led major engineering efforts across teams and shaped technical direction
Who this fits
This is a hands-on staff-level technical leadership role, suited to someone who can shape architecture and product direction while contributing code. The role is based in New York and follows a hybrid workplace model.
From the employer
Role Summary:
Datadog is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to help shape the future of our Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) Logs offering by unifying observability pipelines with log management software that customers deploy and manage in their own infrastructure. This role will focus on building and scaling systems that process, route, and store high-volume observability data within customer-managed infrastructure. You will operate as a hands-on technical leader, driving architecture, cross-team delivery, and product direction across a complex and evolving space. This is a high-impact opportunity to influence product strategy, mentor engineers, and solve deeply technical challenges at scale.
At Datadog, we place value in our office culture - the relationships and collaboration it builds and the creativity it brings to the table. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our Datadogs can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.
What You’ll Do:
- Make customer-controlled deployments feel like a managed Datadog product: deployment, upgrades, configuration, observability, diagnostics, reliability, and secure operation across diverse customer cloud environments
- Build and scale high-throughput systems for log processing, routing, and transformation across distributed environments
- Lead cross-team initiatives, aligning engineers, product managers, and stakeholders to deliver complex, multi-team projects
- Design and implement software that runs reliably that customers deploy and operate within their own cloud infrastructure.
- Improve system performance, scalability, and cost efficiency through thoughtful trade-off analysis and capacity planning
- Contribute hands-on to critical code paths, debugging, and deployment challenges in customer environments
Who You Are:
- You have significant experience building software that is installed, deployed, and operated in customer environments rather than only as a fully managed SaaS service.
- You have strong expertise in distributed systems, including scalability, performance optimization, and high-throughput data processing
- You are proficient in systems-level programming (e.g., Go, Rust, or C++) and understand how software runs across diverse environments (e.g., Linux systems)
- You have experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, or GCP) and are comfortable troubleshooting infrastructure and networking issues
- You are experienced with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Kubernetes in production environments
- You have a track record of leading large, cross-functional engineering efforts and influencing technical direction across teams
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 you’re passionate about technology and want to grow your skills, we encourage you to apply.
Benefits and Growth:
- Generous and competitive benefits package
- New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan
- Continuous career development and pathing opportunities
- Employee-focused best in class onboarding
- Internal mentor and cross-departmental buddy program
- Friendly and inclusive workplace culture
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.
The reasonably estimated yearly salary for this role at Datadog is:$244,000—$305,000 USDAbout Datadog:
Datadog is the leading observability and security platform for the AI era, providing businesses with unified visibility across the technology stack to manage complexity at scale. It brings applications, infrastructure, data, models, and security into one place, using AI to detect and resolve issues before they impact customers. Trusted globally by Fortune 500 companies and high-growth AI leaders, Datadog enables businesses to move faster with clarity and confidence. Learn more about #DatadogLife on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Datadog Learning Center.
Equal Opportunity at Datadog:
Datadog is proud to offer equal employment opportunity to 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 our Candidate Legal Notices for 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 complete this 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 Datadog’s Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. For information on our AI policy, please visit Interviewing at Datadog AI Guidelines.