Staff AI Engineer - Cloud FinOps

About the Role

As a Staff Software Engineer on Datadog’s Cloud FinOps team, you will help define how the company understands, analyzes, and optimizes its cloud infrastructure expenditure. This role bridges engineering, finance, and executive leadership, focusing on building systems and insights that guide company-wide decisions regarding infrastructure usage, AI usage, and efficiency. You will design scalable solutions to enhance cost attribution, forecasting, and visibility across Datadog’s multi-cloud environment. This is a significant opportunity to influence strategic decisions, tackle complex infrastructure efficiency problems, and help shape the evolution of FinOps capabilities at Datadog.

What You’ll Do

• Design and evolve internal platforms and tools for visibility into Datadog’s cloud infrastructure costs across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
• Partner with Finance, Engineering, and Executive Leadership to analyze cloud spend trends and inform strategic decisions.
• Develop scalable models and systems for accurate cloud cost attribution across complex shared infrastructure.
• Build forward-looking FinOps capabilities to empower teams in proactively managing and optimizing infrastructure usage.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering leaders to understand system architectures and translate infrastructure usage patterns into actionable cost insights.
• Influence company-wide initiatives related to cost efficiency, forecasting, and infrastructure planning.
• Elevate team performance by leading through example, developing systems and patterns that enhance productivity and autonomy, and providing pragmatic technical guidance as a hands-on contributor.

Who You Are

• Experience designing or operating distributed systems at scale.
• Proven ability to lead significant cross-organizational technical initiatives and influence senior stakeholders.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to engineering, finance, and executive audiences.
• Experience working with major cloud infrastructure platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Capacity to operate autonomously in ambiguous problem spaces and develop scalable solutions.
• A keen interest in infrastructure efficiency, cost attribution, and FinOps-related challenges.

Benefits and Growth

• Generous and competitive benefits package.
• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan.
• Continuous career development and pathing opportunities.
• Employee-focused, best-in-class onboarding.
• Internal mentor and cross-departmental buddy program.
• Friendly and inclusive workplace culture.

Salary Range

$234,000 - $300,000 USD

Datadog operates as a hybrid workplace, valuing office culture while ensuring work-life harmony. We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds and experiences. Benefits and Growth details may vary by location. Please note that the salary range provided is an estimate and actual compensation will depend on various factors.