Mission freelance Datadog developer

Datadog developer
6 Month contract initially + Extensions
Based: London Max 2-3 days onsite p/w
Rate: £Market rates p/d - (via Umbrella company)

We have a great opportunity with a world leading organisation where you will be provided with all of the support and development to succeed. A progressive organisation where you can really make a difference. We have a great opportunity for a Datadog developer to join the team.

We are seeking a highly skilled Datadog Subject Matter Expert (SME) with a strong developer mindset to join our client engagement onsite in the UK. The role focuses on designing, implementing, and optimizing observability within modern application and cloud-native ecosystems, working closely with development, SRE, and platform teams.
The ideal candidate will bring deep hands-on Datadog expertise, strong coding/scripting skills, and experience embedding observability into the software development lifecycle (SDLC) for large-scale, mission-critical systems.

Your responsibilities:
Datadog Platform Engineering
* Design and implement end-to-end observability solutions using Datadog across metrics, logs, traces, RUM, synthetics, and events.
* Develop and maintain custom dashboards, service maps, and business journey views aligned to application and business KPIs.
* Configure and optimize alerts, monitors, and SLOs/SLIs to ensure actionable and noise-free alerting.
* Drive Datadog best practices adoption across application and platform teams.
Developer Enablement & Instrumentation
* Embed Datadog APM, OpenTelemetry, and custom instrumentation into applications (Java, .NET, Python, Node.js, etc.).
* Partner with developers to ensure observability-by-design during development, testing, and release cycles.
* Develop reusable instrumentation libraries, tagging standards, and data models.
* Support shift-left observability across CI/CD pipelines.
Cloud & Container Observability
* Implement Datadog monitoring for cloud platforms (AWS / Azure / GCP) including services, networking, and security signals.
* Enable deep observability for containerized and Kubernetes environments (EKS/AKS/GKE, OpenShift).
* Optimize telemetry ingestion, sampling, and cost management.
Automation & Integration
* Build automation using Python, REST APIs, Terraform, or CI/CD tools for Datadog onboarding and configuration.
* Integrate Datadog with ITSM, incident management, and collaboration tools (e.g., ServiceNow, PagerDuty).
* Support automated incident detection, enrichment, and diagnostics.
Performance & Reliability Engineering
* Perform performance analysis and root cause investigations using Datadog telemetry.
* Support capacity planning, resilience testing, and reliability improvements.
* Participate in post-incident reviews and drive continuous improvement actions.
Stakeholder & Onsite Responsibilities
* Act as the Datadog technical face-off for UK-based stakeholders and client teams.
* Collaborate with application owners, architects, and SRE teams in onsite workshops and design sessions.
* Provide guidance, documentation, and knowledge transfer to client teams.


Key Skills & Experience:
* Strong hands-on experience with Datadog (APM, Infra, Logs, RUM, Synthetics, Dashboards, Monitors).
* Solid programming experience in Java, Python, .NET, Node.js, or similar languages.
* Experience with OpenTelemetry and distributed tracing.
* Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and microservices.
* Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and container observability.
* Working knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, Git, and DevOps practices.
Experience
* Ideally 6-10+ years of experience in software engineering, SRE, or observability roles.
* Proven experience delivering observability solutions in large enterprise or BFSI environments.
* Experience working in onsite / client-facing roles, preferably in the UK or Europe

This is an excellent opportunity on a great project of work, If you are looking for your next exciting opportunity, apply now for your CV to reach me directly, we will respond as soon as possible.


LA International is a HMG approved ICT Recruitment and Project Solutions Consultancy, operating globally from the largest single site in the UK as an IT Consultancy or as an Employment Business & Agency depending upon the precise nature of the work, for security cleared jobs or non-clearance vacancies, LA International welcome applications from all sections of the community and from people with diverse experience and backgrounds.

Award Winning LA International, winner of the Recruiter Awards for Excellence, Best IT Recruitment Company, Best Public Sector Recruitment Company and overall Gold Award winner, has now secured the most prestigious business award that any business can receive, The Queens Award for Enterprise: International Trade, for the second consecutive period.