Strategic FDE Lead: Scalable Field Engineering

Datadog; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 192,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity package

Healthcare

Dental

Parental planning

Mental health benefits

401(k) match

Paid time off

Stock purchase plan

Job summary

Datadog's Forward Deployed Engineering Lead role sits at the intersection of sales, execution, program design, and hands-on engineering leadership. You will help define the FDE motion, build the program's structure, and expand its reach across customer segments.

You will hire, onboard, and develop full-time FDEs, manage secondments, and shape offerings while partnering with Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success to drive ARR and customer value. Some travel will be required.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in forward deployed engineering, solutions architecture, software engineering, or related technical fields.
• At least 3 years in a customer-facing technical role.
• 2+ years of engineering management or technical leadership experience.
• Experience scaling a technical program in a high-growth technology company with field feedback.
• Deep familiarity with cloud-native stacks and observability platforms; Datadog experience is a plus.
• Strong communication across audiences from engineers to VPs and travel willingness.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and ability to navigate matrixed organizations.

Responsibilities

• Evolve and scale the FDE operating model end to end, with metrics and reporting.
• Build a catalog of FDE offerings including observability accelerators and cost optimizations.
• Capture gaps and translate into structured briefs for PM and Engineering input.
• Hire, onboard, and develop FDEs, and manage secondments and assessments.
• Identify high-value opportunities and drive lightweight sprints to reusable assets.
• Collaborate with Sales, Solutions Eng, Customer Success, and BD to select accounts and represent the function in reviews.

Skills

Forward Deployed Engineering

Solutions architecture

Customer-facing leadership

Executive communication

Program design

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

CI/CD pipelines

Infrastructure as Code

Observability/Monitoring

Job description

Datadog's Forward Deployed Engineering Lead role sits at the intersection of sales, execution, program design, and hands-on engineering leadership. You will help define the FDE motion, build the program's structure, and expand its reach across customer segments.

You will hire, onboard, and develop full-time FDEs, manage secondments, and shape offerings while partnering with Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Customer Success to drive ARR and customer value. Some travel will be required.