5 Things I Learnt About Datadog

After 6 years working for a competitor, I decided it was time to find out whether the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. Here’s what I discovered.

The proverbial ‘no d*ckhead policy” appears to be in operation and functioning well.

1. Real people who work really hard

The culture of a company is generally defined by its leadership and makes its way down through the organisation. Organisations with great leadership tend to provide an environment where good people and good behaviours flourish. On the other hand, if the head is rotten, the decay can be seen at all levels.

It’s been a pleasure to discover that Datadog most definitely falls into the former. Everyone I’ve met has been welcoming and seems to operate with a sense of purpose that puts the customer at the forefront of what they do. The proverbial ‘no d*ckhead policy” appears to be in operation and functioning well.

Unified data and ease-of-use are fundamental design principles at Datadog.

2. It does what it says on the box (and more)

As businesses grow (and Datadog has grown faster than most), they can sometimes lose sight of their “Why”. Ill considered product development and loosely coupled integrations with acquired products can result in an inconsistent and disjointed UI, confusing users and devaluing the platform. Fortunately that is not the case at Datadog.

Unified data and ease-of-use are fundamental design principles at Datadog. When an acquisition is made, the company typically spends 12-18 months refactoring the technology into a unified data model and incorporating the product capabilities into the UI. Every new feature undergoes a final “user experience” test by one of the founders. The outcome of all of this is a platform with a consistent look and feel that continues to add value for customers.

Datadog’s engineering velocity is extreme - it’s like The Flash and Sonic the Hedgehog gave birth to an engineering team.?

3. The platform is evolving fast… really fast

The last thing organisations need is for their technology direction to be stifled by their vendor’s roadmap (or lack of one). Datadog’s engineering velocity is extreme - it’s like The Flash and Sonic the Hedgehog gave birth to an engineering team.?

Extreme velocity is possible because 30% of revenue is assigned to R&D. At the time of writing, that’s over $500M in R&D spend per annum (and growing). I literally receive daily updates on new feature releases. Not only is the platform evolving fast, but it seems to be evolving in a direction that meets customers needs.

“I love Datadog. My engineers love Datadog and I love happy engineers.”

4. Engineers love it

DevSecOps is a culture that requires robust and consistent observability practices. For this to happen, the observability? platform must not only be feature rich, it must also be intuitive to use. If not, engineers simply won’t engage with the platform.

Usage of Datadog tends to grow organically within organisations. One team will adopt it and then other teams will follow suit when they find out how easy it is to use.?

This was neatly summed up by one of my customers when I asked how the experience with Datadog had been. “I love Datadog. My engineers love Datadog and I love happy engineers.” he said.

"In my view Datadog has won the observability platform war in the USA."

5. Flying under the radar

All of the above has resulted in hyper-scale growth and in my view Datadog has won the observability platform war in the USA. In the Australasian market Datadog has grown rapidly and has household name customers in every segment, but is still not as well known as it deserves to be.? Hopefully, this article goes some way towards addressing that. ?

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Chris Marshment is a Senior Enterprise Account Manager at Datadog. The views and opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Datadog.