How do employees feel about their professional development opportunities at Datadog?

I've been at Datadog for three months now, and I couldn't be happier! The onboarding experience has been the best I've ever had — and I’ve heard the same from many colleagues. Transitioning into Tech Sales without prior experience in the tech industry felt like a big leap, but Datadog offers incredible support for people like me. The "learn as you go" culture is truly empowering, and what's even better is how willing everyone is to help. You never feel judged for asking questions — even if it’s the tenth time.

The only con I’ve noticed—though not a major one—is the lack of training tailored to the culture of the country I’m focusing on. While the sales methodology is solid and widely applicable, some cultural nuances would be helpful to address. I’ve shared this feedback with the Enablement team. Being aware of these differences, I kept them in mind and was able to adapt the methodology to what made sense in my market.

great culture, good pay and brilliant training

not much to say for this

Very good culture and training

High expectations around daily execution

Great company culture, excellent ongoing training, rapid investment and expansion of the tools, easy to see the vision, customers/users LOVE the platform.

None so far that I've noticed.

things that in the long run you realize are just a smoke screen-free lunches 3 days a week and sweet kitchen,

Where do I even start...If you are serious about working at this company, I implore you to read this entire thing This CS role is account management and customer success combined. You are constantly dealing with client issues which they say the company’s values and want you to respond within 24 hours but then ask why your sales metrics are low when you have no time to prospect. Basically, they are asking you to do two jobs for the low price of 1 and you must work long hours just to keep up. Knowing they are asking a lot out of you; they make it even worse by micromanaging the hell out of you. They say they won’t when you start but as time goes on you ask about it and get hit with “this is what is expected of you in the role.” They don’t take any ownership and deflect to “this is our system” BS. You will spend HOURS repeating work, updating accounts on everything you do throughout the day and filling out what they call deal reviews. Basically, you must show your manager what you’re doing on almost every account, fill out multiple excel sheets of the same product allotment list and its infuriating. The biggest red flag is that their products have a VERY HIGH technical learning curve and there is NO REAL TRAINING aligned for customer success. The training they give you to start is 90% geared towards new sales and is basically a waste of your time. Once you’re in the role your only support is to bother your peers and your designated "buddy" who walks you through different aspects of the job in the beginning but then have their own job to do and eventually drop off. You are stuck having to ask a million questions with no real process for anything as everyone does things differently. The hardest part is their product is so technical that it is hard to understand fully and difficult to pitch. When you have meetings with clients you talk to a lot of engineers and developers so as soon as you bring up a product and get two sentences in you are completely lost. Example-It took 6 months before we got a training session on the main platform and how to walk through a basic demo with a client-6 MONTHS!! That should be something we do in the first week Also, datadog charges their clients 10’s of thousands of dollars for training of their product lol. So very little clients actually pay for that and then it all falls on you to figure it out for them (but you have no clue either because you had no real training so it becomes chaos and very time consuming-something you have very little of to begin with) So many of your clients don’t understand the products they are using, how to properly navigate the basics of the platform or how they are billed. What this translates into is almost every time you try to upsell or expand their account all they care about is optimizing and bringing their price down. They bought the product for $50k two years ago and because they didn’t know how to use the products correctly, they are now renewing for $200k and don't know how it happened. So, hitting your sales growth number is very difficult and half of any success is just luck of a company consolidating. I have communicated with so many people in the customer success department during my time there and there are employees 2-3 years in who are still very lost and rely on luck to hit their sales numbers If you have made it this far into this review, then props to you. You really care about how you are going to be supported in a new role and what I would say to you is RUN. Do not take this job, they will not train you and it’s less than a 50/50 shot that you figure it out or get let go in 4-6 months because you couldn't cut it. My advice to you is to find a more established customer success department that has a real training system and products that aren’t extremely difficult to grasp.

My colleagues were great - Datadog attracts quality talent and culture fit amongst ICs. Datadog's market fit is top tier and customers are generally satisfied with the product offerings. The internal sales and product training are very good. Lunch served Mon, Wed, Fri in office and quarterly company outings. Benefits are competitive and ESPP is generous.

Compensation and growth in the Customer Success vertical are totally out of whack. Your KPI and bonus structure is capped which incentivizes a culture of laziness and leads reps to do the bare minimum to get to 100%. Pay discrepancies amongst co-workers with the same title and less experience are jarring. While KPIs are attainable, the total compensation is drastically below market average for similar roles. It's important to note that the title of Customer Success doesn't encapsulate your actual role here - you are expected to act as the Account Manager (heavy sales focus), lead enablement, handle escalations, and broker the relationship between legal, engineering, support, and Product Managers. The workload could be considered overwhelming to some with managing the volume of accounts (~150 accounts / rep). The platform is also quite extensive (40+ products) requiring a lot of training. It will take ~6-12 months for you to feel confident. There is a perception of favoritism within leadership and ICs, which ultimately affects floor morale and advancement opportunities. Quarterly bonuses are subjective to your manager with a 50/50 split on KPIs and "Communication". When concerns are raised about any of this, you feel ostracized for speaking up and makes you feel like like they only want "Yes" people who just follow leadership blindly. Promotions are incredibly challenging to obtain - often times empty promises are given and then pushed off another 6mo. for your next performance review cycle. The CSA and CSM career pathing has been mapped out as a 4 year process, which is concerning to anyone who is looking to advance their career and income. This has lead to a substantial turnover rate amongst top performing reps. If you've made it this far, my advice: Only consider this role if you are looking to break into tech or looking for a resume builder at a well established company. If you are sales orientated and/or consider yourself a high performer, look elsewhere because compensation and recognition will leave you feeling unfulfilled.

Great benefits, great learning experience, great product

None to mention at the moment

Intensive but productive onboarding experience. Trainings provided are good for career development and getting up to speed with product knowledge

Fast paced and have a very steep learning curve. Requiring hard-work and hunger to learn

Working with great sales leaders

Lack of training and culture

Best product in the market, great leadership, excellent training

Paid significantly below market value