Senior Incident and Escalations Manager

Sydney · 8+ years experience · Full-time · Hybrid · Posted Oct 14, 2026

At a glance

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.

The Incident and Escalation Management team (IEM) at Datadog is seeking a Senior Incident and Escalations Manager to provide fast incident response, clear ownership, and calm communication for global customers.
In this individual contributor role, you will lead the response to complex, high-impact incidents, drive cross-functional coordination, and implement processes and automations.
You will also act as a trusted partner across Support, Engineering, and Product teams to influence decisions, address root causes, and reduce recurrence.

Lead the response to our most complex, ambiguous, and high-impact incidents and escalations from start to finish.
Navigate competing priorities across multiple critical customer situations, independently assessing business and technical impact.
Represent IEM to regional Support, Sales, and Engineering leadership to drive response coordination.
Lead communications during highly sensitive, public, or large-scale incidents for customers, internal leadership, and stakeholders.
Act as a trusted incident and escalation partner across Support, Engineering, Product, and other teams.
Lead high-impact, cross-functional projects that improve how Datadog manages incidents and escalations at scale.
Establish and evolve incident and escalation best practices, documentation, runbooks, and training.
Mentor and provide guidance to other IEMs or GSEs members during complex situations and contribute to hiring.
Design and champion proactive monitoring and detection strategies that surface customer-impacting risks earlier.
Identify systemic patterns across incidents, escalations, customer infrastructure, and product behavior to influence Engineering and Product partners.

8+ years of related professional experience, including at least 4 years of experience in incident management and customer escalations.
Significant experience in a hands-on technical role at a software or cloud company, such as Support Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering, or Solutions Architecture.
Strong understanding of cloud computing, distributed systems, and modern software architectures.
Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity during high-pressure, high-visibility situations.
Experience operating as the sole or most senior incident responder in a region or timezone.
Experience identifying systemic patterns across incidents or escalations and translating them into operational, process, or technical improvements.
Proven experience driving complex, cross-functional projects from conception through delivery.
Exceptional written and verbal English communication skills.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Science/Technology, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Value is placed on office culture and the relationships and collaboration it builds.
Operates as a hybrid workplace.