Product Analytics is expanding, and we’re looking for an experienced Staff Engineer to lead the technical direction of our user analytics platform. This group builds services that help customers understand users behaviors: when they return, where they drop off, and how product changes affect retention and growth.

This is a young and fast-growing product area for Datadog. It brings new types of users into the platform extending our reach beyond our traditional engineering audience: Product Managers, Designers and Growth teams. To support this growth, we need to push our backend further: query older data, adapt our storage patterns, and design systems optimized for analytics rather than technical telemetry.

In this role, you will drive the architecture, evaluation, and delivery of systems that allow customers to explore over a year of behavioral data, run complex funnel and retention queries at scale, and do so with low latency and high reliability.

At Datadog, we value our office culture – the relationships and collaboration it builds and the creativity it brings. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our Datadogs can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.

What You'll Do:

• Partner closely with engineering, product, and design to architect and deliver a backend platform purpose-built for product analytics workloads.
• Lead high-visibility technical initiatives, including:
  • Long-term data storage and retrieval for year-plus behavioral datasets.
  • Distributed query patterns for funnel, retention, and segmentation analysis.
  • Caching and optimization layers tailored to large analytical queries.
  • Build-vs-buy evaluations, including collaboration with internal platform teams and integration of open-source tools where appropriate.
• Define the technical roadmap for Product Analytics and align multiple engineering teams around shared goals and architectural principles.
• Work across organizations to bridge product needs with the right internal or external technologies.
• Provide technical mentorship and help grow the next generation of senior engineers within the team.

Who You Are:

• You have a BS/MS/PhD in a scientific field or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of backend engineering experience.
• Strong background in distributed systems and large-scale data processing.
• Deep experience with SQL, query optimization, and large analytical datasets.
• Comfortable leading build/buy evaluations and integrating open-source or third-party systems when needed.
• Effective communicator able to explain technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical partners.
• Product-minded with strong judgment about customer value, even when solving highly technical problems.
• Passionate about mentoring, raising the bar, and shaping a growing product area.
• 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.

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)
• Competitive global benefits
• Giving programs

Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.

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Requisition ID: R11404