# Senior Staff Software Engineer

**Company:** [Datadog](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/datadog)
**Location:** New York, NY
**Role:** Fullstack Engineering
**Salary:** $272k – $340k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Distributed Systems, Backend Engineering, Infrastructure, Distributed Storage, Event Streaming, Networking, Data Infrastructure, Observability, Large-Scale Systems, AI Tools
**Posted:** 2026-01-21

> Leads design and delivery of large-scale distributed systems for observability platforms at Datadog. Requires 10+ years backend/distributed systems experience, deep expertise in core domains, and proven technical leadership across teams.

## Job Description

## The Opportunity

Datadog’s Senior Staff Engineers are technical leaders operating at the forefront of large-scale systems design, building the infrastructure that will support our next five years of growth and beyond. They excel as individual contributors, technical leaders, and engineering stewards.

## What You’ll Do:
- Be the technical owner of multiple critical systems or architecture areas, often spanning several teams or product lines.
- Drive the design and delivery of high-scale, high-impact projects, from vision to execution in production.
- Build consensus and alignment across stakeholders on key architectural decisions and long-term strategy.
- Deeply investigate and optimize performance, reliability, and efficiency in large-scale distributed systems.
- Collaborate with Staff Engineers, Directors, and VPs across the company to shape Datadog’s technical roadmap.
- Guide teams through ambiguity, scaling challenges, and evolving requirements with clear technical direction.
- Actively mentor engineers and influence engineering culture through leadership in design reviews, technical talks, and working groups.

## Who You Are:
- You have a BS/MS/PhD in a scientific field or equivalent practical experience.
- You have 10+ years of backend, infrastructure, or distributed systems engineering experience.
- You have 4+ years of experience leading complex technical initiatives and cross-team projects. You have designed and delivered systems that are deeply technical, highly reliable, and serve critical business needs.
- You can navigate and make progress in ambiguous problem spaces, identifying the right problems to solve.
- You have exceptional communication skills, with the ability to align diverse stakeholders around a shared technical vision.
- You have deep expertise in one or more core systems domains—such as distributed storage, event streaming, networking, data infrastructure, or large-scale observability—and broad awareness of adjacent areas.
- You care about getting things right, not just getting them done, and you raise the bar for engineering quality around you.
- You’re excited about leveraging AI tools to enhance how you code, solve problems, and build – or eager to learn how.

## Benefits and Growth:
- Get to build tools for software engineers, just like yourself. And use the tools we build to accelerate our development.
- Have a lot of influence on product direction and impact on the business.
- Work with skilled, knowledgeable, and kind teammates who are happy to teach and learn.
- Competitive global benefits.
- Continuous professional development.

## Similar roles

- [Software Engineer, Collections Experience](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/6713d73b-0362-4fb4-9b56-0eaf40a512b3) - Notion - San Francisco, CA - $272k – $320k/yr
- [Staff Product Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/2bac6d6a-b4e2-4778-abf8-392d26b72e44) - Parafin - San Francisco, CA - $265k – $330k/yr
- [Senior Staff Software Engineer, Replit Cloud](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/415ca514-39e7-4141-8025-093567809ea5) - Replit - Foster City, CA - $265k – $390k/yr
- [Staff Software Engineer, Money](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/a9ff7381-fd19-4ced-a3c8-336ff3c41b89) - Replit - Foster City, CA - $265k – $340k/yr
- [Staff Product Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/14a3c4bc-299d-4f5a-9eb8-11ed99f32196) - Parafin - San Francisco, CA - $265k – $330k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/96b3e6db-ed4a-4b7f-abc0-340fa5a82927
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/96b3e6db-ed4a-4b7f-abc0-340fa5a82927