Staff Visual Designer, Design Lab

About the role

You will define and evolve Datadog's visual language across product surfaces and AI experiences in a focused, high-visibility capacity. Setting the visual quality bar is a core responsibility, ensuring clarity and consistency at the platform level for every interaction. You will lead exploratory and concept work that pushes the design system forward into new territories. Translating bold visual ideas into scalable patterns becomes a key daily task that bridges imagination and execution. You will partner closely with Brand, Product Design, and Design Systems teams to unify expression across product and marketing touchpoints. Influencing executive stakeholders happens through clear, compelling visual storytelling that aligns vision with impact. Prototyping, testing, and refining new patterns occur rigorously before they are systematized into production standards. You will also help shape how visual direction is integrated into the design process for long-term coherence. This role reports directly to the Design Director, anchoring visual leadership within the organization. You will work within a small, focused team defining the future state before it scales to hundreds of designers and engineers globally.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Conduct deep visual research to uncover patterns that inform a cohesive language for Datadog's interfaces.
• Establish and maintain strict visual quality standards that ensure consistency across all digital platforms.
• Drive the creation of exploratory concepts that challenge existing assumptions and open new creative pathways.
• Transform abstract brand ideas into concrete, scalable visual systems that function at enterprise scale.
• Collaborate with Brand teams to ensure marketing expression aligns with product design language.
• Work alongside Product Design leaders to translate strategic goals into tangible visual outcomes.
• Partner with Design Systems engineers to ensure components remain flexible and visually robust.
• Present visual narratives to executive stakeholders, using storytelling to secure alignment and buy-in.
• Build interactive prototypes to test usability and aesthetics before committing to final implementations.
• Iterate on designs based on user feedback and technical constraints to refine the end-user experience.
• Define token structures, spacing systems, and typographic hierarchies that underpin every interface.
• Mentor junior designers on visual best practices to elevate the overall quality of the team's output.
• Evaluate emerging design tools and techniques to keep the visual language modern and efficient.
• Contribute to long-term roadmap decisions that shape the future of Datadog's product experience.
• Ensure all visual deliverables meet accessibility and usability standards for diverse audiences.
• Document design decisions to create a clear trail of reasoning for future iterations.

Requirements

You bring 10+ years of visual and product design experience working on complex digital products. Leading a meaningful visual evolution or rebrand within a mature product ecosystem is part of your background and expertise. Strong taste and the ability to defend a point of view are essential in discussions with stakeholders at every level. You know how to translate brand principles into flexible product systems that adapt across multiple contexts and devices. You balance meticulous craft with the ability to move quickly when necessary, maintaining quality under pressure. Comfort in undefined spaces allows you to establish direction from scratch without relying on rigid templates or precedents. You influence engineers, designers, and executives through clear communication, using visuals as a primary language. Your portfolio demonstrates exceptional visual craft and deep product thinking, not just applied systems work or trend-driven experiments. Experience in data platforms, observability tools, or AI products is helpful for understanding the domain context. Proficiency with Figma, Sketch, Protopie, Principle, Abstract, Jira, and Confluence is required for day-to-day collaboration. You are comfortable presenting your work and rationale to senior leadership with confidence and clarity. You thrive in collaborative environments where feedback is frequent and used to strengthen outcomes. You understand the importance of consistency while still allowing room for creative experimentation. You are committed to producing work that is both beautiful and functional in high-stakes enterprise settings.

Why this role matters

DRUIDS powers every Datadog experience, serving as the central nervous system for observability data. Decisions made in this role will shape how millions of interactions feel across web, mobile, and AI-driven surfaces globally. This is an opportunity to define visual direction inside a complex, engineering-forward platform and raise the craft bar across the entire organization. Your work will directly impact how teams understand and act on critical data in real time. By joining this role, you contribute to the evolution of a platform used by some of the world's most technology-dependent companies. This position represents a rare chance to leave a lasting visual legacy at the heart of a transformative product.

Nice to have

Experience in data platforms, observability tools, or AI products is helpful for navigating domain-specific challenges.

Skills and tools

Proficiency with Figma, Sketch, Protopie, Principle, Abstract, Jira, and Confluence is required for efficient collaboration and delivery.

What you'll do

• Meet the bar About the company

Datadog delivers an observability service for cloud-scale applications, enabling teams to monitor servers, databases, tools, and services through a SaaS-based data analytics platform. Roles span product, engineering, design, and operations, reflecting the breadth of the platform. Collaboration happens across teams that build and support the platform, contributing to feature development, reliability, and usability. The company maintains a publicly traded listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange, demonstrating its position in the market.