Senior Developer Advocate Data Observability

Senior Developer Advocate - Data Observability

Datadog is seeking a Senior Developer Advocate with a focus on Data Observability. This role is for technical leaders and mentors who own projects from beginning to end, facilitating collaboration and enabling Datadog's community to solve real-world problems. You will use both engineering expertise and advocacy skills to shape the technological landscape.

What You’ll Do:

• Act as a subject matter expert for data observability.
• Create content (demos, blogs, webinars, open source) to build Datadog's leadership in data engineering and observability.
• Partner with and coach internal teams on public communication.
• Contribute to product feedback (bugs, enhancements).
• Identify and pursue community-focused opportunities to build trust with practitioners.

Who You Are:

You are a trusted technical expert who enjoys helping data practitioners understand, operate, and improve complex data systems in production. You bring deep, hands-on experience in modern data engineering and can provide clear context to both the community and internal teams. You bring depth in some areas and working familiarity across many, comfortable connecting them into a coherent operational story.

Key Responsibilities and Experience:

• Data engineering & processing systems: Experience with distributed systems like Apache Spark or Databricks, understanding common failure modes, performance tradeoffs, and operational challenges.
• Data platforms & analytics systems: Hands-on experience with platforms like Snowflake and BigQuery, including schema design, data modeling, SQL, performance, cost, and access patterns.
• Streaming & event-driven data: Understanding of streaming systems like Kafka, including producer/consumer behavior, lag, and how streaming issues impact downstream data.
• Data quality, lineage, and metadata: Familiarity with data quality, impact analysis, change management, and experience with tooling like dbt, OpenLineage, or similar.
• Programming & querying: Proficiency in languages like Python, Scala, Java, or Go, along with strong SQL skills, comfortable moving between code, queries, and notebooks.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience as a software developer, data engineer, SRE, or related practitioner role.
• 3+ years of experience in advocacy, developer relations, or equivalent reaching technical audiences.
• Publicly available writing samples, demos, repositories, or technical presentation recordings.
• Familiarity with modern cloud infrastructure and container-based systems.
• Strong interest in self-directed learning and exploring new technologies.

Bonus Points:

• Experience supporting data pipelines for ML or AI systems.
• Meaningful contributions to open source or shared technical tooling.

Datadog values diverse backgrounds. We encourage passionate individuals to apply even if they don't meet every qualification.

Benefits and Growth:

• New hire stock equity and ESPP.
• Continuous professional development and career pathing.
• Mentorship and buddy programs.
• Inclusive company culture and Community Guilds.
• Access to Inclusion Talks.
• Free global mental health benefits.
• Competitive global benefits.

Benefits and Growth details may vary by country and employment nature.

Compensation:

The reasonably estimated yearly salary for this role at Datadog is: $194,000—$237,000 USD. Datadog offers a competitive salary and equity package. Actual compensation is based on skills, qualifications, and experience. Benefits include healthcare, dental, parental planning, mental health, 401(k) plan and match, paid time off, fitness reimbursements, and discounted ESPP.

About Datadog:

Datadog is a global SaaS business known for growth and profitability. We aim to break down silos and solve complexity in the cloud age by enabling digital transformation, cloud migration, and infrastructure monitoring. Built by engineers, for engineers, Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes. We champion professional development, diversity, innovation, and work excellence. Join our collaborative, pragmatic, and thoughtful people-first community.

Equal Opportunity at Datadog:

Datadog is committed to equal employment opportunity for all individuals. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories. For accommodation requests, please complete this form. This form is for accommodation requests only.

Privacy and AI Guidelines:

Information submitted is processed according to Datadog’s Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. For AI policy, visit Interviewing at Datadog AI Guidelines.

Key skills/competency

• Developer Advocacy
• Data Observability
• Data Engineering
• Public Speaking
• Content Creation
• Technical Expertise
• Community Engagement
• Cloud Infrastructure
• Programming (Python, Scala, Java, Go)
• SQL