Staff Software Engineer - K9 Security

This role is part of Datadog’s Security Agent team, which powers critical security capabilities across Workload Protection, Vulnerability Management, Cloud Security products, and other emerging security offerings. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will lead the design and development of low-level Linux instrumentation and runtime security technologies that help customers detect threats, monitor system activity, and protect cloud-native workloads at scale. You will work on complex technical challenges involving eBPF, Linux kernel internals, performance-sensitive systems, and large-scale data collection while influencing technical direction across multiple product teams. This role offers significant ownership, broad organizational impact, and the opportunity to shape the future of Datadog’s security platform.

At Datadog, we value our office culture – the relationships and collaboration it builds and the creativity it brings. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our Datadogs can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the architecture and development of security agent capabilities that power runtime threat detection and workload protection across Datadog Security products.
• Design and build reusable eBPF-based monitoring functionality for process, file, and network visibility within Linux environments.
• Drive end-to-end delivery of new features, from technical strategy and design through implementation, testing, and rollout.
• Establish and evolve testing methodologies that improve platform coverage, detection quality, reliability, and performance.
• Partner with product, security, infrastructure, and engineering teams to deliver shared platform capabilities used across multiple Datadog products.
• Provide technical leadership by influencing engineering direction, mentoring peers, and helping resolve complex cross-functional challenges.

• You have significant experience building software in Linux environments, including knowledge of Linux internals, kernel APIs, or systems programming.
• You have hands-on experience with eBPF, kernel-level instrumentation, driver development, networking systems, agent development, or related low-level technologies.
• You’ve built and run systems where performance and reliability actually matter.
• You have experience building and maintaining production software across diverse Linux distributions and kernel versions.
• You are product-minded and customer-focused, balancing technical excellence with customer impact and usability.
• You have demonstrated technical leadership, influencing architecture and execution across teams while communicating effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Datadog values people from all walks of life. We understand not everyone will meet all the above qualifications on day one. That’s okay. If you’re passionate about technology and want to grow your skills, we encourage you to apply.

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
• Intradepartmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking
• An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)
• Competitive global benefits
• Giving programs

Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.

Datadog is the leading observability and security platform for the AI era, providing businesses with unified visibility across the technology stack to manage complexity at scale. It brings applications, infrastructure, data, models, and security into one place, using AI to detect and resolve issues before they impact customers. Trusted globally by Fortune 500 companies and high-growth AI leaders, Datadog enables businesses to move faster with clarity and confidence. Learn more about #DatadogLife on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Datadog Learning Center.