Senior Software Engineer - Linux Kernel/eBPF
Datadog
About the role
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 achie
Underpaid estimate
~₹19 LPA for Software Engineers (industry-wide) · based on 526 submissions