Frontend Staff Engineer (Accessibility) - DesignOps

We are seeking a seasoned Frontend Staff Engineer with a deep specialization in accessibility to join DesignOps, the team responsible for our Design System: Druids. This role will be pivotal in defining, shaping, and leading the accessibility roadmap across the company. You will build the strategic vision for accessibility, drive execution, ensure we have scalable tooling, and champion best practices to maintain and elevate our accessibility standards. This position requires a combination of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and leadership to embed accessibility at the core of our products and processes.

At Datadog, we place value in our office culture - the relationships and collaboration it builds and the creativity it brings to the table. We operate as a hybrid workplace to ensure our Datadogs can create a work-life harmony that best fits them.

What You’ll Do:

• Strategic Leadership:

  • Establish a clear company-wide vision for accessibility, integrating it into our design and development processes.

  • Advocate for accessibility as a key pillar of product quality and user experience.

• Tooling and Standards:

  • Build scalable, reusable frameworks and tooling to integrate accessibility testing and compliance into our development processes.

  • Update our Design System to comply with accessibility standards. For this and the previous point, you’re expected to spend about half your time coding (React, TypeScript and CSS.)

  • Identify and implement tools to streamline accessibility audits, testing, and compliance across teams.

  • Maintain and update accessibility standards and documentation, ensuring alignment with evolving best practices and regulations.

• Expertise and Collaboration:

  • Act as a subject-matter expert on accessibility, providing guidance to teams on technical implementations and trade-offs.

  • Evangelize best practices and embed accessibility into our frontend community’s workflows.

  • Represent accessibility priorities in planning sessions, design reviews, and retrospectives.

  • Monitor industry trends and share insights to keep Datadog at the forefront of accessibility innovation.

  • You will be required to participate in some customer calls as an accessibility expert.

Who You Are:

• Experience: 10+ years of relevant engineering experience. You have a deep knowledge of accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG, ARIA) and tools. You have a proven track record of successful projects in the accessibility space. You approach challenges holistically, from platform-level systems to the finer details of individual components. Bonus: you have experience developing and scaling design systems. 

• Leadership: 4+ years of technical leadership experience, including both effective communication of complex concepts and experience coordinating across teams to ship critical products. You can define a technical vision and execute it.

• Technical Proficiency: hands-on experience working with React, TypeScript, advanced CSS with a strong understanding of accessibility implications.

• Collaboration: Experience working in cross-functional teams, with a track record of building effective partnerships with product managers and engineers.

• Positive Energy: You bring an upbeat and motivating presence to the team, helping create a collaborative, supportive atmosphere that drives collective success.

Datadog values people from all walks of life. We understand not everyone will meet all the above qualifications on day one. That's okay. If you’re passionate about technology and want to grow your skills, we encourage you to apply.

Benefits and Growth: 

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing

• Intradepartmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking

• An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)

• Access to Inclusion Talks, our internal panel discussions

• Free, global mental health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+

• Competitive global benefits

Benefits and Growth listed above may vary based on the country of your employment and the nature of your employment with Datadog.