Datadog Software Engineer Behavioral (Experience & Values) Interview

This interview is Datadog’s manager-led “experience & values” conversation that validates how you work: ownership, collaboration, product mindset, and communication in a high-scale observability/security context. Expect a 45–60 minute discussion with a hiring manager or director that is primarily behavioral but can include light technical follow-ups on past projects or a brief design walk-through to ground your stories in real impact. ([interviewing.io](https://interviewing.io/datadog-interview-questions?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) It is commonly labeled as an “experience and values” or “values” interview in the onsite loop. ([glassdoor.com](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Datadog-Sr-Software-Engineer-Interview-Questions-EI_IE762009.0%2C7_KO8%2C28.htm?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) Focus areas specific to Datadog: - Take Ownership: End-to-end responsibility, clear accountability, and driving outcomes; be ready to discuss incidents you owned (e.g., SLOs/MTTR improvements, runbooks, postmortems) and how you used signals (metrics, traces, logs) to triage. Datadog emphasizes ownership culturally and in process (for example, team ownership of issues). ([careers.datadoghq.com](https://careers.datadoghq.com/detail/6114394/?gh_jid=6114394&utm_source=chatgpt.com), [docs.datadoghq.com](https://docs.datadoghq.com/error_tracking/issue_team_ownership/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) - Win as a Team / Break Down Silos: Cross-functional collaboration with engineers, PMs, SRE, and security; resolving conflicts, mentoring, and aligning stakeholders to ship iteratively. “Each win is a team win” and “breaking down silos” are recurring themes. ([builtinnyc.com](https://www.builtinnyc.com/job/corporate-development-platform-strategy/254816?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) - Humility, Learning, and Feedback: Share examples of learning from failure, giving/receiving feedback, and creating psychological safety (Datadog explicitly celebrates learnings and treats feedback as a two-way, growth-oriented practice). ([careers.datadoghq.com](https://careers.datadoghq.com/diversity-equity-inclusion/?utm_source=chatgpt.com), [datadoghq.com](https://www.datadoghq.com/videos/lead-lead-and-not-lead-follow/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) - Customer/Product Mindset: Pragmatic engineering and measurable customer impact—how you framed tradeoffs (reliability, security, performance) and validated value delivery. ([careers.datadoghq.com](https://careers.datadoghq.com/detail/5778932/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) What strong performance looks like: concise STAR stories anchored in metrics; clear decision-making under ambiguity; evidence of collaborative influence across teams; ownership through incidents and follow-through on postmortems; and the ability to reflect on mistakes with humility and actionable learning. The interviewer may probe for technical depth on your examples to assess authenticity and judgment, even in a behavioral round. ([interviewing.io](https://interviewing.io/datadog-interview-questions?utm_source=chatgpt.com))