Senior Security Engineer, Offensive Security

Datadog; New York (NY); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

New hire stock equity (RSUs)

Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Professional development and product training

Interdepartmental mentoring program

Free global mental health benefits

Job summary

Datadog is seeking a Senior Security Engineer in New York to focus on offensive security. The role involves planning red team engagements, building custom tools, and improving operations through automation and AI. The ideal candidate has 5+ years in offensive security, strong coding skills in Python or Go, and deep expertise in areas like Linux security and Kubernetes. Datadog offers stock equity, professional development, and an inclusive culture.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in offensive security, red teaming, or penetration testing.
• Production-quality coding skills in Python, Go, or similar.
• Expertise in Linux security and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Experience with evasion techniques against modern defensive controls.
• Strong communication skills for conveying technical concepts.

Responsibilities

• Plan and execute red team engagements simulating real-world threats.
• Build and maintain custom offensive tooling and automation frameworks.
• Develop payloads and evasion capabilities tailored to Datadog's environment.
• Use automation and AI to improve offensive operations.
• Collaborate with Detection & Response team during purple team exercises.
• Translate findings into actionable improvements for defense teams.

Skills

Offensive security

Penetration testing

Python

Go

Linux security

AWS

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Communication

Job description

Senior Security Engineer, Offensive Security

New York, New York, USA

Here at Datadog, we think about offensive security a little bit differently. We embrace automation and AI to run adversary simulations continuously across a massive cloud-native environment, and we expect our offensive engineers to build the tooling that makes that possible. We're looking for a Senior Security Engineer who can execute sophisticated red team operations, write the code that scales them, and take an AI-first approach to offensive security engineering.

What You’ll Do

• Plan and execute red team engagements end-to-end, simulating real-world threat actors across cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP), Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and corporate environments
• Build and maintain custom offensive tooling, automation frameworks, and engagement infrastructure, treating offensive operations as a software engineering problem
• Develop custom payloads and evasion capabilities tailored to Datadog's environment and modern defensive controls (EDR, SIEM, network monitoring)
• Improve the efficiency of offensive operations through thoughtful use of automation and AI, accelerating reconnaissance, vulnerability analysis, and reporting workflows
• Partner with the Detection & Response team on purple team exercises to validate detection logic, improve alert fidelity, and influence threat models
• Translate offensive findings into concrete improvements by working directly with defensive security and engineering teams to close gaps

Who You Are

• You have 5+ years of hands‑on experience in offensive security (red teaming, penetration testing, or adversary simulation) with a track record of operating against mature, well‑defended environments
• You write production‑quality code (Python, Go, or similar), can build your own tools, and automate your workflows rather than relying exclusively on off‑the‑shelf frameworks
• You have deep expertise in at least two of the following areas: macOS security, Linux security, cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, or CI/CD pipelines
• You have experience developing evasion techniques against modern defensive controls and understand how detections work from the blue team side
• You have strong communication skills, with the ability to convey complex offensive findings clearly and effectively to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders
• You are comfortable operating with ambiguity, scoping your own work, identifying what matters most, and driving projects from prototype to deployed and validated

Benefits and Growth

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
• Interdepartmental mentor and buddy program for in‑house networking
• An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)
• Free, global mental health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+

Equal Opportunity at Datadog

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. Here are our Candidate Legal Notices for your reference.