Senior Software Engineer - Linux Kernel/eBPF

Cloud Network Monitoring (CNM) gives you visibility into your network traffic between services, containers, availability zones, and any other tag in Datadog. Our core responsibility is tracking network flows on the host using eBPF, ensuring deep visibility into network health and network signals across a wide variety of Linux distributions and kernel versions.

Datadog is investing heavily in Network Monitoring to give customers comprehensive Layer 1 to Layer 7 visibility across their infrastructure. The Cloud Network Monitoring team builds the agent-side instrumentation that makes this possible, using eBPF programs that capture network activity at the kernel level at scale. One of our key challenges is handling a high volume of network data and kernel events while maintaining a minimal footprint on the customer's host. Balancing exhaustive observability with performance that is invisible to the workloads we monitor is critical to the adoption and success of our product.

In this role, you will work at the intersection of eBPF, the Linux kernel, and network infrastructure. You'll contribute to Network Monitoring capabilities within the Datadog Agent, investigate production incidents, improve reliability, and help shape the architecture of one of the most widely deployed eBPF solutions in the industry.

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

What You’ll Do

• Contribute to the end-to-end development of Network Monitoring features, from ideation to implementation within the Datadog Agent
• Build and maintain shared eBPF functionality for product teams to use in their eBPF-based products
• Investigate and debug complex production issues that span the kernel, eBPF programs, and agent runtime
• Research, prototype, develop, and document solutions to hard problems in the eBPF and network monitoring space
• Provide technical input to product and architecture decisions

Who You Are

• Possess deep technical experience in Linux kernel development, whether through eBPF, core kernel contributions, or engineering low-level systems in C
• Demonstrate a robust understanding of fundamental network protocols, including TCP and UDP
• Have a proven track record of architecting and building high-throughput, low-latency infrastructure
• Bring 5+ years of experience engineering complex applications and tooling, with the ability to reason about systems in depth
• Prioritize solving customer-facing problems by building elegant, high-impact products that users love
• Thrive in fast-paced environments, taking full ownership of initiatives and driving them to resolution with minimal guidance
• Genuinely enjoy tackling hard technical problems and feel energized by navigating complex challenges across the full stack
• Collaborate effectively within a team-oriented environment to achieve shared goals

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.

Benefits and Growth:

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
• Intra-departmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking
• An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds
• Access to Inclusion Talks, our Internal panel discussions
• Free, global Spring Health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+
• Competitive global benefits

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

About 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.

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.

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Any information you submit to Datadog as part of your application will be processed in accordance with Datadog’s Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. For information on our AI policy, please visit Interviewing at Datadog AI Guidelines.