What candidates say the round looked like, summarised in our words, each linked to where it came from. Datadog hasn’t confirmed these details unless the source says “Official page”.
read the files, write code, run tests (at least half of 1 reports)
The reports
Onsite · October 2026
Passed this round
Senior · Other · Go
Staff loop that ended in an offer. The AI-assisted coding round runs in a hosted dev environment on an existing Go codebase with Claude Code or Codex: implement a feature and find some bugs. You’re expected to have the agent do all the coding and debugging; this candidate worked entirely in the Claude Code CLI plus a second terminal for their own commands, with no IDE. Problems vary, but familiarity with concurrency and distributed systems is what matters. They didn’t even know Go, and with an agent it wasn’t a problem.
AI: Your own AI tools that could read the files, write code, run tests · Task: Mixed · Source: Blind thread
Onsite · August 2026
Passed this round
Senior
Senior SWE: after an initial screen, a virtual onsite of 4 interviews: AI coding, system design, behavioural and values. The candidate felt they aced the AI coding interview and that system design was the shaky one. They were told the next morning that the team had decided to move on.
Ahead of the AI coding interview, the candidate was offered a choice of two formats: coding a feature, or an AI-assisted code review. Another candidate (July) reported that the onsite now has an LLM-oriented system design round and an AI-assisted coding round in place of traditional LeetCode.