Senior Datadog Cloud Engineer
Location: SEC Headquarters – Washington, DC 20549Position Type: Onsite (Government Site – No Telework)Contract Duration: 07/20/2026 – 01/19/2027 (6 Months, Extension Possible)Target Start Date: 07/20/2026Program: SEC ISS 2Clearance Requirement: Public TrustCitizenship Requirement: U.S. Citizen Only (No Dual Citizenship)Overtime: Possible (Manager Pre-Approval Required)Conversion Potential: Possible Full-Time OpportunityRole SummaryWe are seeking a Senior Datadog Cloud Engineer to provide technical leadership for enterprise observability, application performance monitoring (APM), distributed tracing, and cloud monitoring supporting the SEC Infrastructure Support Services (ISS) contract. This hands-on engineering role is responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing an enterprise observability platform across hybrid cloud and containerized environments while improving system reliability, availability, and operational performance.The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in Datadog (or equivalent observability platforms), Azure and AWS cloud monitoring, Kubernetes/OpenShift, performance engineering, and enterprise-scale operational analytics.Key ResponsibilitiesObservability Platform EngineeringEngineer, administer, and optimize enterprise observability platforms including:Datadog (preferred)DynatraceNew RelicSplunk ObservabilityGrafana/PrometheusDesign and maintain:DashboardsAPMDistributed tracingLog pipelinesRUM (Real User Monitoring)Synthetic monitoringNetwork Performance MonitoringBuild and maintain:SLOsSLIsAlerting policiesMonitoring standardsInstrument applications and infrastructure using:OpenTelemetryLanguage-specific tracersW3C TraceContext propagationUnified service taggingDevelop integrations between observability platforms and:ServiceNowCI/CD pipelinesOn-call notification systemsDefine and enforce enterprise telemetry tagging standardsCloud & Container MonitoringDesign monitoring solutions for:Microsoft AzureAmazon Web Services (AWS)Monitor:PaaS servicesServerless workloadsNetworkingIdentity servicesManaged databasesEngineer monitoring for:AWS RDSAuroraAzure SQLPostgreSQLMySQLSQL ServerOracleDynamoDBCosmos DBElastiCache/RedisDesign observability solutions for:OpenShiftKubernetesService MeshCluster healthWorkload performanceDevelop reusable Infrastructure-as-Code monitoring modulesPerformance EngineeringLead performance investigations involving:LatencyReliabilityCapacityResource utilizationAnalyze:Distributed tracesDependency mapsCode profilingDatabase query performanceException trackingRUM correlationsPartner with engineering teams to implement performance improvementsDevelop trace-based deployment tracking and change correlation processesProvide technical leadership during production incidents and root cause analysisCapacity & Reliability EngineeringAnalyze operational telemetry and performance trendsDevelop capacity planning dashboards and executive reportsDefine:Capacity thresholdsAlert baselinesScaling recommendationsImprove:Monitoring coverageAlert qualityOperational maturitySLA/KPI complianceRequired Technical SkillsMinimum 8 years of IT infrastructure or platform engineering experienceMinimum 5 years focused on:ObservabilityPerformance EngineeringSite Reliability Engineering (SRE)Hands-on experience with enterprise observability platforms including:Datadog (strongly preferred)DynatraceNew RelicSplunk ObservabilityGrafana/PrometheusExpertise with:Application Performance Monitoring (APM)Distributed tracingOpenTelemetryContinuous profilingService dependency mappingExperience instrumenting applications using:Java.NETPythonNode.jsGoExperience with:Microsoft AzureAmazon Web Services (AWS)Hybrid cloud environmentsExperience monitoring:KubernetesOpenShiftContainer platformsExperience with:SQL performance tuningDatabase monitoringQuery analyticsExecution plansExperience integrating observability with:ServiceNowCI/CD pipelinesDevOps workflowsExperience with Infrastructure-as-Code using:TerraformARM TemplatesBicepStrong troubleshooting, analytical, and performance optimization skillsPreferred / Nice-to-Have SkillsExperience supporting federal government environmentsExperience leading enterprise observability strategyExperience with enterprise operational dashboards and executive reportingExperience supporting 24x7x365 production environmentsAdvanced knowledge of cloud-native monitoring and telemetry governanceQualifications & ExperienceBachelor's degree in:Computer ScienceInformation TechnologyEngineeringRelated technical fieldMinimum 8 years of relevant infrastructure/platform engineering experienceMinimum 5 years specializing in observability, SRE, or performance engineeringAbility to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearanceU.S. Citizenship required (No Dual Citizenship)About the Team / CompanyThis role supports the SEC Infrastructure Support Services (ISS) contract, providing senior technical leadership for enterprise observability across hybrid cloud, containerized, and on-premises environments. The engineer will collaborate with cloud, platform, and application teams to improve system reliability, operational visibility, and performance while supporting mission-critical SEC infrastructure.Benefits (employee contribution):