Senior Software Engineer - Agent Metric Pipelines
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The Datadog Agent collects and transmits application and host telemetry, which powers many Datadog products such as Infrastructure Monitoring, Logs, APM, and Database Monitoring. This software runs on customer infrastructure across various platforms, collecting and receiving telemetry that is then forwarded to Datadog for analysis. This process provides customers with deep insights into their systems and performance data.
The Agent Metric Pipelines team’s mission is to collect and forward metrics reliably with the smallest possible overhead and simplest possible configuration. They own the Agent code that receives metrics, processes them, and forwards them into Datadog’s metrics intake and platform so everything downstream (indexing, aggregation, alerting, graphs) can work correctly and at scale. They also own the client libraries for publishing custom metrics to the Agent from a variety of languages (including Go, Java, C#, and others).
What You’ll Do
* Design and implement high-performance, resource-efficient data pipelines for collecting, aggregating, and shipping metrics from the Datadog Agent to backend systems
* Profile and optimize code for CPU, memory, and network efficiency to ensure smooth operation in resource-constrained, on‑prem environments where agents run on customer hosts
* Ensure data correctness, compression efficiency, and overall quality across the telemetry pipeline, including deduplication, tagging, and metric typing
* Collaborate on performance analysis and tuning, improving reliability, latency, and throughput across large-scale ingestion systems
* Partner with other teams to support new telemetry formats, gRPC/UDP data paths, and OpenTelemetry integration
* Contribute to operational excellence, including monitoring, debugging, and on‑call rotations, ensuring low latency and high data delivery success rates
* Write clean, maintainable code in Go and Rust, and help evolve the Agent ecosystem to support new workloads and environments
Who You Are
* Strong experience in systems or distributed programming (Go, Rust, C++, Java, or similar)
* Experience with Agent-like software or other software deployed on‑prem
* Experience in data pipeline processing, compression techniques, or telemetry transport protocols (e.g., gRPC, UDP, message batching)
* Skilled in performance profiling and optimization—thinking in terms of CPU cycles, memory footprints, and bandwidth efficiency
* Understanding of Linux internals and low‑level OS concepts, familiar with Kubernetes or containerized deployment workflows
* Openness to working in Go and Rust, and interest in OpenTelemetry and observability systems
* Value reliability, observability, and craftsmanship in production software, thriving in collaborative, cross‑functional engineering environments
Benefits and Growth
* New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
* Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
* Intra‑department mentor and buddy program for in‑house networking
* An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)
* Access to Inclusion Talks, internal panel discussions
* Free, global mental health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+
* Competitive global benefits
About Datadog
Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG) is a global SaaS business, delivering a rare combination of growth and profitability. We are on a mission to break down silos and solve complexity in the cloud age by enabling digital transformation, cloud migration, and infrastructure monitoring of our customers’ entire technology stacks. Built by engineers, for engineers, Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes across a wide range of industries. We champion professional development, diversity of thought, innovation, and work excellence to empower continuous growth.
Equal Opportunity
Datadog is proud to offer equal employment opportunity to everyone regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, and other characteristics protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.
Privacy and AI Guidelines
Any information you submit as part of your application will be processed in accordance with Datadog’s Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. For information on our AI policy, visit our AI guidelines.
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