Datadog for Startups - Forward Deployed Engineering Lead

The role

This leadership role sits within Datadog's FDE group, which is expanding its remit across customer segments. The lead works alongside the head of the startups program and the existing engineers to define the playbook, build scalable processes, and act as a bridge between customers, sales, and product teams.

What you would do

• Refine the end-to-end FDE process, from taking in engagements through delivery, handoff, and measuring outcomes like adoption and revenue impact
• Design a catalog of packaged FDE services and help shape pricing and commercial models for them
• Gather product gaps seen during customer deployments and turn them into prioritized proposals for product and engineering
• Recruit, onboard, and grow full-time forward deployed engineers while coordinating rotating engineers seconded from other teams
• Create technical evaluation methods suited to embedded customer work and coach the team on scoping, communication, and platform knowledge
• Lead small, focused build efforts that turn repeated customer requests into reusable tools and integrations
• Work with sales, solutions, success, and partnerships teams to pick target accounts and advise customers through complex rollouts

What they asked for

• Eight or more years in embedded engineering, architecture, or closely related technical work, with at least three years facing customers directly
• Two or more years leading engineers, including hiring, mentoring, performance reviews, and cross-team coordination
• Experience building or expanding a technical practice or new team at a fast-growing technology company, using customer input to influence product direction
• Working knowledge of contemporary cloud platforms, container orchestration, service architectures, delivery pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code
• Practical background with monitoring, tracing, or log analytics products
• Ability to explain technical topics clearly to audiences ranging from senior engineers to executives
• Commercial awareness linking technical choices to revenue, retention risk, and account growth
• Comfort operating through influence in large organizations and willingness to travel frequently

Nice to have

• Hands-on familiarity with Datadog