Senior Software Engineer - Streaming Platform
Datadog is hiring a Senior Software Engineer - Streaming Platform in New York, United States. It pays $192k-$240k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Datadog.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
- The listed pay starts 14% above the typical software engineer posting on Level.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include Rust, Java and Go.
- Level classifies it as a senior role.
- Level lists 433 other open roles at Datadog.
AI in this role
Build and scale core streaming infrastructure, low-level client libraries, and distributed data pipelines in Rust, Go, Java, and Python.
Senior Software Engineer - Streaming Platform Client
Data streams are mission-critical at Datadog, powering near real-time communication across the vast majority of our services. Our Streaming Platform group builds the core infrastructure and abstractions that ensure Datadog remains a trusted partner for engineers worldwide. See our blog post.
The Streaming Platform Client team sits at the heart of this ecosystem. We own the Rust client library (producers and consumers) with language bindings for Java, Go, and Python. We focus on building intuitive APIs and abstractions that make a powerful distributed system easy to adopt and operate for the hundreds of internal users of our library.
Our library runs on critical data paths that handle hundreds of millions of messages per second making performance, observability, and reliability paramount. We also develop and operate the service that bridges the clients fleet with the platform's control plane, handling complex balancing, scaling, and static stability challenges.
We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to help us evolve these features. You will collaborate directly with our users, tackle performance-critical code, and solve complex distributed systems challenges across the control plane, client libraries, and data plane.
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:
Work within a distributed, high-impact team spanning Europe and the US, building critical technologies that power data pipelines for dozens of internal teams and hundreds of services.
- Architect and implement resilient interactions between our client libraries and the control plane.
- Optimize our high-throughput, low-level streaming library to push the boundaries of performance and efficiency.
- Champion the developer experience by providing exceptional support, technical documentation, and proactive troubleshooting for our wide user base.
- Lead high-stakes technical projects, maintaining end-to-end accountability for their delivery and quality.
- Collaborate with partner teams on delivering projects wider than your team's scope.
- Mentor junior engineers and interns, fostering a culture of technical excellence and shared knowledge.
Who You Are:
- You are a self-starter who experiments methodically, iterates rapidly, and views failure as a learning opportunity.
- You are a finisher who takes the projects through the finish line and does not stop at shipping code.
- You thrive in collaborative environments, championing a blameless culture and actively fostering the growth of your teammates.
- You communicate complex ideas effectively, with experience gathering requirements from stakeholders and leading high-impact technical initiatives.
- You are deeply committed to user experience, ensuring the tools you build empower developers.
- You have strong proficiency in low-level languages (ideally Rust).
- You have a passion for deep-dive investigations, particularly in performance optimization and debugging complex systems.
- You are curious about AI and actively leverage it to enhance your development workflow.
- Bonus: Direct experience operating or using large-scale streaming systems like Kafka.
- Bonus: Familiarity with language bindings and FFI.
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:
- 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
Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.
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 #DatadogLife on Instagram, LinkedIn and Datadog Learning Center.
#LI-Hybrid
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:$192,000—$240,000 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.
How we rate this
Senior Software Engineer - Streaming Platform at Datadog rates 0 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $192k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 14% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where streaming was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where api design was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where performance optimization was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used Rust in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Streaming, API Design, Performance Optimization, and Rust. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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