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The Pillars of an Award-Winning Program
Datadog was selected as a 2023 Campus Forward Award Winner for their unwavering commitment to seeking out and hiring early career talent, their emphasis on diversity & inclusion, and investments in nurturing and retaining the next generation of talent. Please see below for the highlights of their approach to early career recruitment.
Demonstrated Investment in Early Career Hiring
Datadog's early career hires are an integral part of the team and directly impact the company's product, customers, and business. Datadog believes that its early career contributors are the key to building the next generation of Datadog products and services.
Innovative and Multi-Faceted Approach to University Recruitment
Datadog operates with a school-agnostic approach so that it can connect with a variety of people from different backgrounds. Some of Datadog’s events, such as resume and coding interview workshops, focus on helping candidates ace the interview process; while other events aim to give candidates a taste of the culture at Datadog, with an office tour and a casual networking session with early career hires. Recruiters provide a high-touch, transparent experience by sharing standard resources to help candidates prepare for interviews and by being strong candidate advocates throughout the process.
Overarching Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion
One way Datadog recruits early career underrepresented talent is through its involvement in partnerships with organizations such as ColorStack, Rewriting the Code, and Girls Who Code. The company also offers the Datadog Upward Scholarship to US students interested in tech who identify as a woman, non-binary, Black, or Latinx. Datadog’s Community Guilds bring together groups of individuals based on common backgrounds or demographic factors, and are open to the allies who support them. The groups help Datadog foster an inclusive environment, encouraging collaboration and an increased sense of belonging across departments and regions. Additionally, every employee is assigned a mentor and buddy to help support them throughout their journey at Datadog.
Impactful Internship Program
The strength of the Datadog internship program stems from the assignment of high-impact work to every intern, combined with a deep commitment from the organization to integrate interns into a tight-knit community of peers and mentors. Every intern is paired with a mentor, manager, buddy, and host recruiter. These advocates meet with their interns regularly, and interns' feedback is continually solicited and acted upon to ensure that they are having the most positive experience possible, and that Datadog is continually iterating on the program. Interns are assigned critical projects uniquely tailored to their interests and goals. As a result, they routinely deliver technical demos at engineering-wide all-hands, lead customer calls and sprint planning, contribute to product design, etc. In addition to intern events, interns are included in office-wide monthly Party Pups, in which Datadogs get to know each other in various locations from rooftop bars to boat rides.
Growth and Development of the Next Generation of Talent
At Datadog, the success of its business and product has led to the parallel career success of its interns and early career hires. Mentorship is supported officially by an assigned mentor in onboarding, as well as programs to proactively set up time with leaders (all the way to the C-suite) for mentorship on specific topics. Unofficially, a culture of mentorship facilitates learning from engineers across the company who are experts in the industry. Datadog also has social events for key start dates to make sure early career hires are a part of a community. Its onboarding program ensures each hire has the resources to get to know Datadog as a company, its systems, and their own individual teams. 30-60-90 onboarding plans help set clear expectations and milestones.