US Datadog opens hub in Lisbon

The North American company Datadog opened its first engineering hub in Portugal in July. “Our investment in Lisbon is a long-term one, so we are focused on getting the best talent possible involved,” Nuno Antunes, VP of Engineering for the Datadog Cloud Security Platform, tells ECO. On the company’s website, 56 offers for Lisbon are listed.

“Our investment in Lisbon is a long-term one, so we are focused on getting the best talent possible involved. We have a very high bar for the talent we are looking for, which will define how fast we grow,” says Nuno Antunes, vp of engineering at Datadog Cloud Security Platform, when asked about growth plans for the company’s new engineering centre based in New York.

And are there plans for new hubs? In other locations? “As a fast-growing company, we constantly evaluate the best locations to attract, hire and retain high-caliber talent,” he explains.

Focus on local recruitment

“I have a local presence and network here in Lisbon, so I know that there is a diverse, active and highly competitive talent pool here that made it a perfect location for Datadog’s newest engineering hub,” Nuno Antunes justifies.

Lisbon becomes part of the network of hubs in Denver (USA), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Dublin (Ireland), Paris (France) and Madrid (Spain) that receive employees dedicated to creating Datadog products, a platform that monitors and secures cloud applications.

They are looking for frontend and backend engineers, data engineers and product designers. In the careers area of Datadog’s website, 56 offers for Lisbon are listed.

In terms of recruitment, “the main focus will be in Lisbon, but we are open to, and already have, people working remotely in other locations, namely Porto,” says Nuno Antunes.

“We have successfully demonstrated that a large hub in the capital and small offices in other cities offers an optimal balance between 100% installed teams (working in the same space on a project) and 100% distributed teams,” he says.

The hub has a hybrid working model (for most functions). “Fully remote employees continue to operate the way they did before the pandemic: mostly working from home, with frequent trips to a hub to spend time with their colleagues face-to-face,” he describes.

While the tech talent shortage has led some companies to attract international talent to settle in the country, Datadog maintains a focus on hiring locally.

“First, we plan to offer the opportunity to work in Lisbon to existing talent. We have one person here who moved from Paris last year and is, “living the dream.” Lisbon is also one of the three preferred hiring locations in Europe. And, in addition to the local talent pool and foreign talent who are considering Lisbon, we are also open to expatriate Portuguese looking to return home,” Nuno Antunes stresses.

Despite several announcements of staff reductions in tech companies, Nuno Antunes does not expect a “dramatic change” when it comes to the shortage of talent in the industry. “The best talent will continue to be limited, but we believe we have a strong value prop to attract the best talent,” he says.

“We offer competitive salaries with stock-based compensation, plus all the expected fringe benefits that make us competitive,” Nuno Antunes adds, without further detail.