I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Datadog (Denver, CO) in Aug 2020
Interview
Possibly the least professional interview I have ever been part of. My interviewer was completely unable to ask any relevant questions. He jumped into the call with a series of "tell me more about" and "explain" questions and asked me about why I left a job 3 different times. He seemed unprepared, didn't answer any of the questions I asked competently, and didn't even tell me anything about the role I was applying for. I'm honestly in shock that I had this experience, but after speaking with the girl who referred me she told me that her last referral had the same feedback, so apparently this isn't unusual. After hearing all of the negative things from her and other employees on the toxic culture and boys club that is DataDog, I feel like I probably dodged a bullet there. The email responses I got were in incomplete sentences and without even a shred of caring or professionalism.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
So the reason you left your last job... sorry why was that again?
My interview experience was a complete waste of time. The recruiter simply talked at me, rhyming off what felt like an autopilot script, with very little effort to actually listen to anything I was saying.
After that, the process was nothing but automated email triggers from their ATS. Nobody checked in, nobody made sure I understood the next steps, and nobody seemed remotely interested in whether I was happy with the process. It felt like I was just a number and that the focus was more on hitting interview scheduling quotas than actually assessing candidates properly.
To finish it off, I received an automated rejection email with zero feedback. If they genuinely want to attract strong AEs into the organisation, they should seriously revise this process.
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Datadog (Boston, MA) in Jan 2026
Interview
3 phone calls, one hour long in person interview, 1 hour long zoom call. Such a waste of time, especially having to take off of work in order to interview with them. Seems like they definitely string you along and make the interview process as long as possible.
Professional process and helpful recruiter. They will provide you some materials to prepare. But during interview, the co-interviewer was quite rude. Giving pressure to candidate and even showed disrespectful. Main interviewer was good tho.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
experience, role play including cold email and in-person meeting.