Senior Software Engineer - Backend & Scalability
About this role
At Datadog, we’re building the platform that enables engineers to monitor, secure, and scale their infrastructure and applications - powering reliability and performance across thousands of companies. We ingest trillions of data points each day and tackle challenges of scale, speed, and resilience.
We’re looking for experienced backend engineers who want to take ownership of critical services and deepen their expertise in distributed systems. Whether you've built APIs, pipelines, or backend tooling, this role is a chance to grow your impact while learning how to design and operate high-scale, high-availability systems that support observability and security products used by engineers around the world.
At Datadog, we place value in our office culture - the relationships that it builds, the creativity it brings to the table, and the collaboration of being together. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our employees can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.
What You’ll Do:
Design and build reliable backend services that handle high-throughput, globally distributed workloads
Own core components that power products relied on by thousands of engineering teams worldwide
Collaborate with other experienced engineers to evolve system architecture with a focus on scalability and resilience
Learn and apply distributed systems design patterns in a production setting
Ship production-grade code in languages like Go, Python, or Java
Contribute to team culture through code reviews, architecture discussions, and mentorship of peers and junior engineers
Who You Are:
You have 5+ years of experience building backend software in production, using languages like Go, Python, Java, C++, or Rust
You’ve contributed to the design and development of backend services or APIs, and enjoy solving real-world engineering problems
You’ve had some exposure to distributed systems (e.g., fault tolerance, messaging, scalability) and are excited to deepen your expertise
You write clean, maintainable code and approach system design with thoughtfulness and curiosity
You’re collaborative and eager to grow your impact by working on high-scale, high-reliability systems
You’re excited about leveraging AI tools to enhance how you code, solve problems, and build – or eager to learn how
You have demonstrated ability to use AI coding tools in day-to-day workflows and validate, critique, and refine AI-generated output
Bonus: You’re motivated to push the boundaries of how AI can improve software engineering best practices and contribute to building AI-enabled products
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.
Responsibilities
- Design and build reliable backend services that handle high-throughput, globally distributed workloads
- Own core components that power products relied on by thousands of engineering teams worldwide
- Collaborate with other experienced engineers to evolve system architecture with a focus on scalability and resilience
- Learn and apply distributed systems design patterns in a production setting
- Ship production-grade code in languages like Go, Python, or Java
- Contribute to team culture through code reviews, architecture discussions, and mentorship of peers and junior engineers
- You have 5+ years of experience building backend software in production, using languages like Go, Python, Java, C++, or Rust
- You’ve contributed to the design and development of backend services or APIs, and enjoy solving real-world engineering problems
- You’ve had some exposure to distributed systems (e.g., fault tolerance, messaging, scalability) and are excited to deepen your expertise
- You write clean, maintainable code and approach system design with thoughtfulness and curiosity
- You’re collaborative and eager to grow your impact by working on high-scale, high-reliability systems
- You’re excited about leveraging AI tools to enhance how you code, solve problems, and build – or eager to learn how
Requirements
- You have demonstrated ability to use AI coding tools in day-to-day workflows and validate, critique, and refine AI-generated output
- Bonus: You’re motivated to push the boundaries of how AI can improve software engineering best practices and contribute to building AI-enabled products
- Work with talented engineers who will support your growth in distributed systems and large-scale software design
- Participate in impactful projects from day one with the autonomy to make technical decisions
- Grow your career with access to mentorship programs, internal mobility, and continuous development resources
- New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
- Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
- Intradepartmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking
- An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)
- Access to Inclusion Talks, our Internal panel discussions
- Free, global mental health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+
- Competitive global benefits
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 customers’ 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 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.