Senior Software Engineer - REDAPL Graph Engine

Datadog
Full-time•Full-stack•Dublin, Ireland · Remote within Ireland · Hybrid
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At a glance

Employment type
Full-time
Workplace
Hybrid
Category
Full-stack

What you'll be doing

Senior Software Engineer role at Datadog in Dublin, focusing on REDAPL, a high-scale referential data platform. Drive technical decisions, lead projects, and collaborate across teams to enhance data ingestion, processing, and query pipelines. Hybrid work in Ireland.

  • Build a query engine supporting efficient relationship traversals for demanding workloads
  • Contribute to design and drive high-priority, high-visibility projects to increase platform value, resilience, and scalability
  • Lead and guide engineers through architectural platform decisions
  • Identify system risks and trends in reliability and design solutions
  • Provide input on prioritizing engineering-led initiatives in planning and roadmaps
  • Collaborate with internal product teams to understand requirements and plan for product growth

Key requirements

Must-have

  • BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Engineering or related field or equivalent experience
  • Extensive experience with multiple types of data stores
  • Experience in platform or infrastructure-focused environments
  • Led impactful technical initiatives with focus on performance, cost efficiency, ease of use, and resilience
  • Significant back-end engineering experience
  • Experience building and operating distributed systems at high scale

Nice-to-have

  • Experience with Graph Databases (e.g., Neo4j, Memgraph, JanusGraph, ArangoDB, Amazon Neptune, PuppyGraph)
  • Production-grade experience with Apache Iceberg
  • Solid grasp of query planning or contributions to production-grade query engines or related projects (e.g., Trino, Calcite, Substrait, DataFusion)

Experience: Senior

Role signals

Technical focus
platform, distributed systems, data ingestion, query pipelines
Leadership
Mentoring
Architecture / system design
Indicated in the listing
Hands-on vs management
Hands-on

Full job description

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help us take REDAPL, our Referential Data Platform, to the next level. REDAPL is Datadog's main platform for tracking our customers' infrastructure resources and relationships. The platform enables products where customers can understand, keep track of, and gain insights into their infrastructure related to performance, cost, security, and more.

Many Datadog products use REDAPL today such Cloud Security Posture Management, Resource Catalog, Cloud Cost Management, and Service Catalog and others - REDAPL ingests more than 4.5mil updates/second.

As a Senior Engineer, you will drive, lead and collaborate on projects both inside and outside the platform. You can expect to contribute to key technical decisions relating to our data ingestion, processing, and query pipelines.

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:

  • Build a query engine that supports efficient relationship traversals for our most demanding workloads.

  • Contribute to design and drive high-priority, high-visibility projects to increase the platform's value, resilience, and scalability across multiple teams.

  • Lead and guide other engineers through architectural platform decisions

  • Identify potential system risks and trends in reliability and design solutions to address them

  • Provide input on prioritizing engineering-led initiatives in short- and long-term planning and roadmaps

  • Collaborate with internal product teams to understand their requirements and how we plan for their product growth as they integrate and depend on REDAPL

Who You Are

  • You have a BS/MS/PhD in a Computer Science, Engineering or related scientific field or equivalent experience

  • You have worked extensively with multiple types of data stores

  • You have contributed to initiatives in a platform or infrastructure-focused environment for several years

  • You have led impactful technical initiatives in an environment where performance, cost efficiency, ease of use, and resilience/operability are first-order concerns

  • You have significant back-end engineering experience and have built, and operated distributed systems to solve problems at a high scale

  • Bonus points:

  • You have experience working with Graph Databases such as Neo4j, Memgraph, JanusGraph, ArangoDB, Amazon Neptune or PuppyGraph.

  • You have production-grade experience with Apache Iceberg

  • You have a solid grasp of query planning or better yet - contributed to a production-grade query engines or related projects (e.g. Trino, Calcite, Substrait, DataFusion, etc) ideally demonstrated through open-source contributions or PMC membership on projects.

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:

  • Get to build tools for software engineers, just like yourself. And use the tools we build to accelerate our development.

  • Have a lot of influence on product direction and impact on the business

  • Work with skilled, knowledgeable, and kind teammates who are happy to teach and learn

  • Competitive global benefits

  • Continuous professional development

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

#LI-Hybrid

**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.

Datadog endeavors to make our Careers Page accessible to all users. If you would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the application process, please complete this form. This form is for accommodation requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.

  • Privacy and AI Guidelines:

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.

Interview prep pack

Grounded in this listing. Use it to prepare examples before you apply.

Your interview focus

Expect assessment on designing and operating high-scale distributed systems, especially for data ingestion and query engines. Emphasis on technical leadership, architectural decisions, and experience with graph databases or similar technologies. Collaboration with product teams and driving platform resilience are key.

  • Distributed systems·High
  • Data ingestion & processing·High
  • Query engine design·High
  • Technical leadership·High

Only have 30 minutes?

Follow a focused preparation plan based on this job.

Start 30-minute prep

Your 30-minute plan

  1. Review Distributed Systems Projects

    0–10 min

    Recall specific examples where you designed or improved high-scale distributed systems, focusing on challenges and outcomes.

  2. Refresh Graph Database and Query Engine Knowledge

    10–17 min

    Study graph database technologies and query planning concepts relevant to REDAPL's needs.

  3. Prepare Leadership and Collaboration Stories

    17–24 min

    Identify situations where you led architectural decisions or cross-team projects, emphasizing your influence and results.

  4. Research Datadog and REDAPL Use Cases

    24–30 min

    Understand how REDAPL supports Datadog products and the platform's role in the company.

Likely questions

, 8 items

Priority reflects how strongly this topic is emphasised in the job listing, not whether it will be asked.

Talking points

, 6 items
  • Distributed Systems at Scale

    You will build and operate systems handling millions of updates per second; understanding distributed architectures and their challenges is essential.

  • Data Ingestion and Processing Pipelines

    The platform's core function is ingesting and processing vast amounts of infrastructure data; you must demonstrate expertise in designing robust pipelines.

  • Query Engine and Relationship Traversal

    A key responsibility is building efficient query engines for complex relationship traversals, especially for demanding workloads.

  • Graph Database Technologies

    Experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j, JanusGraph) is a strong plus; you may be asked to discuss their use cases and trade-offs.

  • Technical Leadership and Collaboration

    You will lead projects, guide engineers, and collaborate across teams; expect questions on influencing architecture and mentoring.

  • System Resilience and Reliability

    Identifying and addressing system risks is highlighted; you should be able to discuss strategies for ensuring uptime and reliability.

What to research

, 3 items
  • High-Scale Distributed Systems Design

    Expect deep dives into your experience building and operating distributed systems that handle massive data volumes, as REDAPL ingests millions of updates per second.

  • Query Engine and Graph Database Expertise

    You may be asked to discuss query engine internals and graph database technologies, especially if you have experience with Neo4j, JanusGraph, or similar tools.

  • Technical Leadership and Architectural Decision-Making

    The role emphasizes leading projects and guiding other engineers through architectural choices, so be ready to discuss your leadership approach and decision-making process.

Questions to ask

, 6 items
  1. What are the biggest technical challenges currently facing REDAPL?

    Why ask this? Reveals the immediate priorities and where your expertise could have the most impact.

  2. How does the team approach architectural decisions and cross-team collaboration?

    Why ask this? Clarifies how you would contribute to and influence technical direction.

  3. Which graph database technologies are currently in use or under consideration?

    Why ask this? Helps you understand the technical stack and where your experience aligns.

  4. How does Datadog support professional development for senior engineers?

    Why ask this? Shows the company's commitment to your growth and learning.

  5. What is the typical process for identifying and addressing system reliability risks?

    Why ask this? Gives insight into operational maturity and your potential responsibilities.

  6. How are engineering-led initiatives prioritized within the platform team?

    Why ask this? Reveals how technical debt and new features are balanced.

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Apply NowApply before: 4 Nov 2026