Engineering spotlight: Jeromy Carriere
Jeromy Carriere, Datadog’s SVP of Product Engineering, describes engineering leadership as balancing strategy, execution, people development, and organizational processes. His career across Google, Facebook, and Datadog shaped his passion for observability and taught him to lead through mistakes, autonomy, and accountability. He argues that sustained innovation requires both intentional direction and space for teams and individuals to grow. ## The Responsibilities of Engineering Leadership - Carriere’s work shifts with organizational cycles: - Quarterly planning focused on connecting initiatives and increasing collaboration. - Execution periods focused on removing resource and decision-making blockers. - Ongoing performance management across the broader engineering organization. - He works on how Engineering operates, including: - Process definition and improvement. - Hiring and performance management. - Reviewing design documents and code. - Observing incidents and postmortems. - His central challenge is balancing attention across strategy, execution, people, and technical quality. ## From Cloud Monitoring to Datadog - At Google in 2014, Carriere helped create a cloud monitoring offering because Google Cloud lacked capabilities comparable to Datadog. - He later worked on observability at Facebook and developed a strong interest in improving developer and engineer productivity. - He returned to Datadog after seeing its ability to innovate and deliver products with sustained velocity. - He emphasizes that velocity means more than moving quickly: it requires direction, strategy, and consistency over time. ## Learning Through Mistakes - Carriere believes the most valuable lessons come from making and owning mistakes. - Earlier in his career, he was sometimes too directive, limiting team creativity and ownership. - At other times, he was too distant and failed to provide enough support. - His current leadership approach aims to: - Give teams substantial autonomy. - Provide support when needed. - Hold teams accountable for agreed-upon outcomes. - He also learned that people may not have a clear five-year career plan. Leaders should help them identify the work that provides satisfaction and enables them to perform at their best. ## Creating Space for Career Decisions - People often become focused on the immediate task and overlook other possibilities. - Carriere recommends deliberately stepping back to observe: - What activities feel satisfying. - What opportunities exist nearby. - What kinds of work could better match an individual’s strengths and interests. - This reflection requires intentional time and freedom rather than waiting for clarity to emerge automatically. ## The Value of Co-op and Internship Programs - Carriere credits the University of Waterloo’s co-op program with giving him early experience as a professional software developer. - The combination of strong academic training and repeated, high-quality industry placements helped connect theory with real work. - He sees a similar benefit in Datadog’s internship program, where interns are trusted with meaningful projects and often produce some of the company’s strongest work. Datadog’s engineering approach, as described by Carriere, combines strategic product velocity with thoughtful organizational support. For both leaders and individual contributors, the practical recommendation is to learn from mistakes, create room for reflection, and build environments where people have autonomy, meaningful work, and accountability.
Read original(opens in new tab)