Staff Software Engineer - Security Agent

Role Overview

Staff Software Engineer on Datadog’s Security Agent team. You will lead the design and development of low-level Linux instrumentation and runtime security technologies that power threat detection and workload protection across Datadog security products.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and development of security agent capabilities for runtime threat detection and workload protection.
• Design and build reusable eBPF-based monitoring for process, file, and network visibility on Linux.
• Drive end-to-end feature delivery: strategy, design, implementation, testing, and rollout.
• Establish and evolve testing methodologies to improve coverage, detection quality, reliability, and performance.
• Partner with product, security, infrastructure, and engineering teams to deliver shared platform capabilities across multiple Datadog products.
• Provide technical leadership through influencing engineering direction and mentoring peers, resolving complex cross-functional issues.

Requirements

• Significant experience building software in Linux environments, including Linux internals, kernel APIs, or systems programming.
• Hands-on experience with eBPF and low-level kernel instrumentation (e.g., driver/agent development, networking systems, or related technologies).
• Experience building and operating performance- and reliability-critical systems.
• Experience with production software across diverse Linux distributions and kernel versions.
• Product-minded, customer-focused approach balancing technical excellence with customer impact and usability.

Nice to Have

• Experience influencing technical direction across multiple product teams (implied by the scope of organizational impact).