Manager II, Developer Advocacy

Overview

Lead the Community Advocacy function, managing a team of Developer Advocates who run global programs for customer engineers, including Ambassadors, Champions and User Groups, and supporting customer conference talks and content.

What you'll do

• Lead and develop a team of Developer Advocates, setting clear expectations, guiding priorities, coaching performance, supporting career growth, and fostering an inclusive, high-performing culture
• Own the strategy, goals, and roadmap for Community Advocacy, translating broader Advocacy and company priorities into focused programs and measurable outcomes
• Guide the continued development of the Ambassador, Champion, and User Group programs, creating clear contributor journeys, expectations, enablement, recognition, and opportunities for customer engineers to increase their impact
• Build repeatable systems that enable customer engineers to contribute technical knowledge, create content, share best practices, and serve as trusted leaders within their communities
• Develop a strong pipeline of customer stories by identifying compelling practitioners and helping them shape authentic, technically credible narratives
• Oversee the support, co-development, and coaching of conference talks by customer engineers, from idea and abstract through content review, rehearsal, and delivery, for Datadog events including DASH and third-party industry conferences
• Establish measures of success for Community Advocacy using qualitative and quantitative insights to evaluate program health, contributor engagement, content quality, audience impact, and customer outcomes
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Events, Customer Success, and regional teams to align priorities, identify opportunities, and scale customer participation across Datadog initiatives
• Ensure insights from Ambassadors, Champions, User Group participants, speakers, and other community members are shared with the appropriate teams inside Datadog
• Balance strategic leadership with selective hands-on contribution, including coaching speakers, reviewing technical content, participating in community programs, and representing Datadog when appropriate

What you'll need

• Experience as an people manager who has led autonomous technical professionals, coached performance, developed talent, and translated complex goals into achievable plans
• Experience defining and delivering successful developer advocacy, developer relations, technical community, or a related function
• Experience building or meaningfully contributing to programs that enable external practitioners to participate, contribute, create content, or lead communities at scale
• Experience helping technical practitioners develop and communicate their stories, including coaching conference speakers or co-developing technically credible talks and content
• Former software developer, SRE, or other technical practitioner, or equivalent technical depth, with the judgment to assess technical accuracy and coach effective technical narratives
• Thoughtful cross-functional leadership able to build alignment, make prioritization decisions, and influence partners across Product, Engineering, Marketing, Events, and customer-facing organizations
• Use of both data and community insight to evaluate program effectiveness, identify opportunities, and decide where the team should invest
• Understanding of how to build trust with technical communities and value for authentic practitioner voices over purely promotional messaging
• Comfort operating through ambiguity, establishing structure where needed, and evolving programs as products, customers, and technical audiences grow

Details

• Location: California, USA, Remote; New York, USA, Remote; Washington, USA, Remote
• Remote role