I found the entire interview process to.be great. The whole process took about 3 weeks. I was constantly in contact and told exactly what to expect from each step. The team went through great lengths to make me feel comfortable and valued, and you could tell they were really focused on getting to know me and see if I was the right fit. - Initial phone with recruiter, general and easy - Phone screen with supervisor/hiring manager, again just getting to know you. - Take home exercise. This is the most vauge but probably by design. You are asked to implement the product in way you'd like (I chose to do it with a personal project I was.already working on). They say it should take 4 hrs...I spent 12. I don't think 4 hours is enough to work through any potential hiccups and actually write a meaningful document. The goal does seem to get some insight into how you think, so have fun with it - don't make it a drag. - Half day meet and teach. This is the dreaded 4-5 hour on-site (remote due to Covid) where you round robin with pairs of interviewers. Honestly, I was really prepared for it to exhaust me and be a trial, but it flew by. They're not trying to trick you or have a 'gotcha' moment- they really just want to see how you think and interact with others. For those interested the coding exercise was easy Leet, I spent more time just chatting with the engineer and learning about his experience. - Final wrap up and told how long a potential offer might take. Again, I can't stress enough how pleasant the whole experience was. There were some last min reschedules here and there, but I was always given a heads up and every effort made to respect my time and accommodate me. I did accept an offer, and the interview process highly influenced my decision. I had turned down better offers because the experience made me worried I would be unhappy and when moving jobs it's hard to know what it's going to be like, you're stepping from a known to the unknown. Datadog was one of the best interview processes I've been through, and that is very important to me. Meeting so many employees during the process is also important because you get a much better view of who you will work with and that too is also a great indicator of how the job might be.

I had a very disappointing experience with Datadog's recruitment process. After making it to the final round for a Solutions role, I later learned that recruiters had contacted former colleagues at my current company to ask for feedback about me. This information made its way back internally, putting my current job at risk. Not only is this highly unprofessional, but it also raises serious confidentiality concerns. I would caution candidates to be aware of this before applying.