Lead Designer at Datadog in New York City, NY

Datadog's brand is entering a new chapter—one that needs a designer with the taste and craft to set the bar for what it looks and feels like. We're looking for a Lead Designer to support that evolution: someone who can take a brief, create visionary concepts, pitch them with conviction, and then build the system that lets the team anchor and scale the direction. This role shapes how our brand shows up everywhere it counts and enables brand scalability across every customer touchpoint, from campaigns and events to digital experiences.
This is a hands-on craft role first. You'll bring deep expertise in design, brand identity, visual language, and systems thinking, paired with strategic thinking, business-problem-solving approach. You're as comfortable concepting a bold campaign idea as you are building the design system that makes it repeatable. You move with ease across mediums and you bring a team-oriented, can-do attitude to whatever the work requires. You bring hands-on experience using AI-assisted workflows to elevate how we design, build, and scale our brand. You'll combine exceptional brand craft with a passion for building enduring systems, enabling teams across the organization to create with confidence through thoughtful tools, documentation, and design leadership.
At Datadog, we place value in our office culture - the relationships and collaboration it builds and the creativity it brings to the table. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our Datadogs can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.
What You’ll Do:
Lead the evolution of Datadog’s visual identity and establish the quality bar for brand expression across every touchpoint.
Build the brand systems, templates, asset libraries, and guidelines that allow teams across Datadog to create high-quality work quickly.
Design, build, and steward a scalable, Figma-native brand system—including component libraries, variables, documentation, and governance—that enables consistency across a growing creative organization.
Partner closely with Brand, Creative Operations, Product, Marketing, Sales, and other cross-functional teams to deliver cohesive, high-impact creative experiences.
Enable and influence designers by creating tools, documentation, and workflows that help teams confidently extend and evolve the brand system.
Present design concepts and rationale to stakeholders, influencing decisions through thoughtful visual storytelling and strong creative judgment.
Help define how Datadog’s brand design practice evolves as the company grows, balancing creative exploration with scalable systems and operational excellence.
Bring hands-on experience using AI-assisted workflows to build scalable brand systems, applying that expertise, and can enable teams across Datadog to use them effectively too.
Who You Are:
You have 8+ years of experience in graphic design and brand development, with a portfolio rooted in visual identity and brand craft.
Strong visual design foundation, including typography, layout, color, and hierarchy.
Deep, hands-on Figma expertise: component architecture, style and variable systems, and documentation that other designers will use.
Built a large-scale brand system or Figma library from scratch — not just maintained or contributed to an existing one.
Experience mentoring or enabling other designers to work confidently within a system you've built.
You have strong taste and are comfortable defending a point of view to stakeholders at all levels. You know how to translate brand strategy into scalable, well-governed design systems.
Comfortable working in fast-paced environments with evolving priorities and ambiguity.
You leverage AI tools daily in the way you work — such as for research, ideation, prototyping, scaling design processes, production, and output with precision
Datadog values people from all walks of life. We understand not everyone will meet all the above qualifications on day one. That's okay. If you’re passionate about technology and want to grow your skills, we encourage you to apply.
Benefits & Growth:
Generous and competitive benefits package
New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan
Continuous career development and pathing opportunities
Employee-focused best in class onboarding
Internal mentor and cross-departmental buddy program
Friendly and inclusive workplace culture
Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.
#LI-Hybrid
Datadog offers a competitive salary and equity package, and may include variable compensation. Actual compensation is based on factors such as the candidate's skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, Datadog offers a wide range of best in class, comprehensive and inclusive employee benefits for this role including healthcare, dental, parental planning, and mental health benefits, a 401(k) plan and match, paid time off, fitness reimbursements, and a discounted employee stock purchase plan.
The reasonably estimated yearly salary for this role at Datadog is:
$119,000—$159,000 USD

About Datadog:
Datadog is the leading observability and security platform for the AI era, providing businesses with unified visibility across the technology stack to manage complexity at scale. It brings applications, infrastructure, data, models, and security into one place, using AI to detect and resolve issues before they impact customers. Trusted globally by Fortune 500 companies and high-growth AI leaders, Datadog enables businesses to move faster with clarity and confidence. Learn more about #DatadogLife on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Datadog Learning Center.

Equal Opportunity at Datadog:
Datadog is proud to offer equal employment opportunity to everyone regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, veteran status, and other characteristics protected by law. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. Here are our Candidate Legal Notices for your reference.
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Any information you submit to Datadog as part of your application will be processed in accordance with Datadog’s Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice. For information on our AI policy, please visit Interviewing at Datadog AI Guidelines.