Datadog Career Growth & Development

We provide education that’s standard across all engineering teams while helping each team develop its own individual skill set.

Datadog has done an incredible job of fostering career mobility organically. About one in three Datadogs move internally each year, be it through team moves, promotions or location changes.

Through my personal internal mobility journey at Datadog, I’ve been able to work with different stakeholder groups, gain increased exposure to global teams and build large-scale programs with immense impact.

On transitioning into a brand new sales role:

"The SDR role, although very difficult at first, showed me that sales is not for the weak. It shaped my career, gave me a solid foundation in sales and ultimately led to my promotion to commercial account executive in June of 2025, where I am today."

On support from managers and career growth at Datadog:

"Leaders act as sponsors, but individuals are expected to own their progression, with regular check-ins, measurable milestones and stretch assignments to build both skills and visibility."

How do you structure mentorship and technical learning for engineers?

At Datadog, early-career engineers get real scope and ownership from day one. They own their systems and take part in on-call, so growth is built directly into how teams operate. As a monitoring and observability company that ships fast and relies on our own tools, new engineers often ship code within their first few days. They use Datadog to monitor their changes and ensure everything runs as expected. That hands-on experience builds technical confidence and product intuition quickly. 

On a personal level, I support growth by guiding engineers toward meaningful, technically challenging problems. I provide context, constraints and high-level direction, then give them space for them to design and execute. Real ownership and “skin in the game” is one of the fastest ways to grow. We also don’t separate technical decision-making from implementation. Engineers of all levels are part of design discussions, RFCs and proof-of-concept work. Beyond code reviews, our strong writing and design culture creates natural mentorship moments where senior engineers shape technical thinking and develop as mentors themselves.

What internal mobility or upskilling programs have you launched recently?

We actively encourage engineers to explore different parts of the business in two main ways. First, we have a long-standing “embed” culture. Engineers can temporarily join another team, typically for several weeks to a few months, with manager approval. The process is lightweight and flexible, which makes it easy for people to broaden their exposure and build new skills. 

Building on the success of “embeds,” we recently formalized a more structured internal mobility program that supports permanent team transitions.Engineers who move across teams bring fresh technical perspectives while maintaining strong cross-team relationships. That combination strengthens collaboration and helps us scale effectively.

How do you identify and support future technical leaders?

Because Datadog is growing quickly, leadership opportunities emerge organically. Teams often start small, focused on a specific service or project. As scope expands, teams split, creating opportunities for engineers to step into formal leadership roles. We don’t treat career growth as a single ladder. It’s more of a lattice. Engineers can move between individual contributor and people leadership paths over time. For example, I joined as an IC, then spent about 18 months managing and scaling a team. As the team matured and others stepped into leadership, I returned to an IC role and eventually progressed to staff engineer. That flexibility allows engineers to pursue different forms of leadership at different stages of their careers, whether that’s direct technical contributions, people management or both.