Very mixed feeling throughout the interview. I applied online and a recruiter contacted me back shortly after to schedule a recruiter screening. The interview went well, and I was quickly scheduled for a technical screening, after which I was asked to complete a take home project that I apparently failed. There were many positive points throughout this interview process: - it was fast - the recruiter really did a great job guiding me through the process, and I had the opportunity to get a call to get feedback on what went well and what didn't after I got rejected - the interviewer in the technical screening spent the time to answer my questions, it was a great conversation - the technical screening and the take home project were both related to Datadog's product rather than some typical leetcode questions. The main problem came down to the expectations on the take home assignment. The expectation is to spend "3 hours" on it, though the recruiter mentioned "If you have extra time and spending a bit more time means you'll turn in something you're proud of, I would put in the extra time". After reading the requirements, it was clear that it is impossible to meet the base requirements within 3 hours, even with a strong background. As others pointed out, 8-10 hours minimum is likely needed to complete the base project. I spent my weekend on it to document myself on a good approach, come up with a proper design, handle corner cases and add some unit tests. I can certainly say I was proud of my submission. Yet, I got rejected and she feedback I received was completely out of line with the project requirements. For example, the requirements ask to test a specific part of the project, but I was told they expected more unit tests coverage. Applying for a remote position also played against me, despite the position advertised as open for remote! The process left me feeling disrespected and with a bad opinion about Datadog. I will not re-apply.

All interviews are quite standard in terms of difficulty, and the recruiters do a very good job at keeping you informed, coordinating interviews and giving information about the organization for which you'd interview. Unfortunately: - it's the longest hiring process I've ever had (including those of FAANG companies). For an SRE position it consists of: 1h screening (coding + project deep dive), a take home project (they say it's 3-4h, but it's more like 5-6h), 4 "face2face" interviews of 1h each (coding, system, system desing, culture fit) ...for a total of ~10h. Moreover, in every single interview I had to introduce myself (2-5min) and talk about a project I did (5-10min), which felt like a needless overhead. - I got not-too-friendly vibes from some of the interviewers, a display of a snobby attitude and gatekeeping practices, as if they thought they were the coolest kids on the block - I was told I'd passed all interviews and they really liked me but the team I was interviewing with expected me to be more familiar with their stack (k8s, etc), so they didn't make an offer. At that point the recruiter told me they would try to propose me to other teams in Datadog. This ultimately didn't work out with my timeline. That's overall negative, IMO, as it shows that: a) they focus on specific knowledge of tools rather than engineering principles, background and education, and b) they don't have a company-wide well-coordinated hiring process, but rather rely on an "ad-hoc internal talent market" (the whole idea of "you didn't quite pass with this team, but hang on, lemme see if there's another team that wants you" feels just lame, frustrating and borderline unprofessional).