Staff Engineer - Data Semantics
Leads the technical direction of a data semantics team while designing and scaling semantic infrastructure across observability platforms. The role requires Staff-level architectural ownership, cross-team influence, hands-on distributed-systems experience, and mentorship.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical direction of the Data Semantics team while remaining hands-on in design, implementation, and delivery.
- Build and scale semantic infrastructure connecting OpenTelemetry, Datadog-native telemetry, cloud-provider telemetry, and customer-defined data models.
- Drive initiatives involving schema evolution, telemetry standardization, data insights, and semantic interoperability across Datadog products.
- Partner with engineering and product teams to define standards, align stakeholders, and deliver platform capabilities.
- Mentor engineers through design reviews, technical guidance, operational excellence, and career development.
- Participate in on-call rotations and lead investigations and resolutions for complex production incidents affecting critical platform services.
Requirements
- Significant experience designing, operating, and scaling large-scale data infrastructure, distributed systems, or high-throughput data platforms.
- Demonstrated Staff-level impact through technical leadership, architectural ownership, cross-team influence, and mentorship.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to drive alignment across engineering and product organizations without direct authority.
- Product-oriented mindset with the ability to connect platform investments to customer outcomes and business impact.
- Comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces while balancing long-term platform strategy with pragmatic execution.
Nice to Have
- Experience with schema design, metadata systems, OpenTelemetry, observability platforms, knowledge graphs, or AI-assisted developer tooling.
Compensation and Benefits
- Generous and competitive benefits package.
- New-hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan.
- Continuous career development and pathing opportunities.
- Employee-focused onboarding.
- Internal mentor and cross-departmental buddy program.
- Friendly and inclusive workplace culture.
- Benefits may vary based on the country of employment and the nature of employment.
Skills
OpenTelemetry, Distributed Systems, Data Infrastructure, Schema Design, Metadata Systems, Observability Platforms, Knowledge Graphs, Ai-Assisted Developer Tooling, Telemetry Standardization, Semantic Interoperability
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