Went through the Datadog EM loop in Q1 2026. I've now been through EM processes at maybe 8 companies over my career and this one had some distinctive characteristics worth sharing.
First: the loop is longer than you'd expect for a manager role. Seven rounds, not five. I was a little surprised.
Here's the rough structure:
Recruiter call - 30 min. Leveling conversation mostly. They ask about team size you've managed, scope of ownership, and what you're looking for next. They want to know if you're an L6 or L7 equivalent early.
Hiring manager intro - 45 min. This felt like mutual fit. She was asking as much as I was. Felt conversational, but do not underestimate it. She's scoping your thinking style.
Technical depth round - 60 min with a staff/principal engineer. This surprised some people I talked to before going in but makes sense at Datadog: they want EMs who can go deep on distributed systems and observability architecture. I got asked about how I'd think about a customer reporting high-cardinality metric storage issues. You don't need to whiteboard code but you do need to go several levels deep technically. "I'd work with the team" is not enough.
Two behavioral rounds - Classic leadership and conflict scenarios. Focus areas I saw: influencing without authority, navigating disagreement with a product partner, handling a performance issue on your team, and delivering a project that kept de-scoping. Have 3-4 strong STAR stories ready for each of those.
Cross-functional partner round - PM or sales engineering leader. They're checking collaboration style.
Bar raiser equivalent - A senior leader from a different org. Open-ended. This one went long and got into career trajectory and why Datadog specifically.
The theme I noticed: Datadog cares a lot about managers who still have real technical credibility. Not "used to code 10 years ago" credibility but actively engaged credibility. I leaned into recent architectural decisions I made with my team and that landed well.
Got to offer stage. Happy to answer questions.