Senior Software Engineer - Linux

Datadog; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

RSUs

ESPP

Professional development

Mentor program

Inclusive culture

Mental health benefits

Job summary

Datadog is seeking a senior engineer to advance its zero-instrumentation APM product, working close to the Linux kernel with eBPF, Go, and C/C++. You’ll design core components, help auto-discover services, and extract RED metrics from plaintext and TLS traffic.

The role emphasizes performance, reliability, and cross-team collaboration in a fast-paced environment, with opportunities to influence product direction and platform scalability.

Qualifications

• Significant backend or systems-level development experience.
• Strong proficiency in Go or C/C++ and systems programming.
• Familiarity with kernel technologies and performance-oriented design.

Responsibilities

• Design and build core components of a zero-instrumentation APM product.
• Develop services to auto-discover on-host entities and extract RED metrics.
• Handle protocol parsing, TLS handling, and kernel-level performance optimizations.
• Ensure compatibility across Linux kernel versions and distributions.
• Collaborate with teams to steer technical direction and reliability.

Skills

Go

C/C++

Tools

eBPF

Linux kernel

Job description

Overview

The eBPF APM team is building a zero-instrumentation observability solution that discovers services on every host, supports plaintext and TLS traffic, classifies Layer 7 protocols, decodes service-level traffic, and reports RED (requests, errors, duration) metrics. The team works across Linux kernel versions, distributions, and diverse customer environments, solving challenges related to protocol versioning, TLS detection, and resilient performance in production systems. We are seeking a senior engineer with systems-level thinking and a strong understanding of Linux, comfortable working close to the kernel (ideally with eBPF experience) and proficient in C/C++/Go. Familiarity with networking protocols, TLS internals, or distributed tracing is a strong advantage.

You’ll join a high-impact team tackling ambitious technical challenges—decoding traffic across multiple protocols and delivering high-fidelity metrics in complex environments. You’ll lead design and implementation efforts, contribute to roadmap planning, and collaborate across teams to keep the solution robust, scalable, and user-friendly.

This role is a great fit for engineers who thrive on low-level, performance-sensitive problems and want to shape the future of observability through kernel technology.

What You’ll Do

• Design and build core components of the zero-instrumentation APM product using eBPF and Go
• Develop systems to auto-discover services, classify L7 protocols, and extract RED metrics from plaintext and TLS traffic
• Solve complex challenges around protocol parsing, encryption handling, and kernel-level performance
• Ensure broad compatibility across Linux kernel versions, distributions, and diverse customer environments
• Collaborate across teams to drive technical direction, improve reliability, and scale the system for production use

Who You Are

• Significant experience in backend or systems-level development, with strong proficiency in Go or similar languages (C/C++)
• Comfort working close to the Linux kernel with experience (or interest) in eBPF, networking, or observability tooling
• Deep commitment to performance and efficiency
• Experience designing for reliability and compatibility in complex, scalable systems
• Thrives in a fast-paced, technically deep environment with a small, focused team
• Interest in leveraging AI tools to enhance coding and problem solving, or willingness to learn
• Demonstrated ability to use AI coding tools in day-to-day workflows and to validate, critique, and refine AI-generated output
• Motivated to push the boundaries of AI-assisted software engineering practices

Benefits and Growth

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
• Mentor and buddy program for in-house networking
• Inclusive culture with access to employee resource groups
• Inclusion-focused talks and internal panel discussions
• Free, global mental health benefits for employees and dependents aged 6+

Equal Opportunity

Datadog is an equal employment opportunity employer, committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. We consider qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, or other protected characteristics. We may request additional information as part of our compliance processes. Applicants are encouraged to apply using the standard Datadog Careers process.