When Director of Engineering Daniela da Cruz kicked off the security portion of Datadog’s annual DASH conference keynote address, she highlighted the most critical factor in dealing with modern cybersecurity threats.
Stamped in massive text on the screen behind her was a three-word phrase encapsulating the issue.
“Every second counts.”
Then, da Cruz walked through a live demonstration of Datadog’s latest security announcement, the launch of Agentless Scanning, which allows users of the company’s security platform to scan for and identify security threats across their cloud systems and address them in minutes. What is often a laborious and stressful process of security auditing can now be calmly and confidently addressed.
While it may seem like a marvel of complex engineering, creating the Agentless Scanning product was, to da Cruz, a recent challenge the Datadog team conquered. As a lifelong avid learner — da Cruz has a Ph.D. in computer science and is a professor and researcher in computer science outside of Datadog — discovering new, complicated cybersecurity challenges on the job is an opportunity to be inspired.
“My role at Datadog has definitely not been boring; I feel constantly challenged, and that is why it’s exciting,” said da Cruz.
Inspiration, humility and transparency — which da Cruz describes as “being open” — are the cultural principles that da Cruz brings to leading her teams. She stresses a team-centric approach to successes and failures, which includes a strong culture of feedback and a willingness to admit when you may not have the answer. As a believer in leadership over management, da Cruz embodies the behavior she wants to inspire in her team.
“If I am not open, I can’t expect my team to be open,” said da Cruz.
Built In spoke with da Cruz to learn more about what inspires her about her role at Datadog, her approach to building culture on an engineering team and what excites her about the future.
What’s your vision for leading your team?
I don’t want to be a manager. I want to be a leader. I learned this from a very good leader that I had. I want to inspire people to reach their potential — that is what I aim for. One thing that person taught me is that when you go on vacation and your team can handle everything without you, it means you did a good job and you are ready for the next step — which could mean further developing leadership skills or taking on greater challenges and responsibilities.
“I don’t want to be a manager. I want to be a leader.”
I still want to have an impact on the company and drive innovation in the security industry. If I can inspire people, I can also drive innovation, as people will feel more inclined to do their best — both are connected! If they can reach their potential and be impactful, everyone will be better for it.
My focus is to inspire people and focus on their growth, to be here to back them up and support them and to ensure they have everything they need to be ready for the next step. I grow along with them to prepare them for that next step.
How do you build team culture at Datadog? What does that look like on your team?
Team spirit is crucial for me. I don’t like the words “us” and “them.” Even if some part of the team fails, we all fail. We need to see all of us as a team and work together.
To build team culture is to be open. I want to build a safe place where employees can come to one-on-one meetings with me and share their challenges or concerns and address what we can do better and what they don’t know. It’s about openness and humbleness. I always ask people on my team their opinions on what they think we should do. We can’t have a transparent culture if openness is not coming from me as well. I need to share when I don’t know the answer, and we all share our questions and keep this open culture.
It’s also important to celebrate achievements. We often take success for granted. Product delivered — done, great, next — but we sometimes forget to celebrate.
We also always try to act on feedback. It is important for the team in different ways. If we have a survey, we should address what the survey reflected from the team and what people want at work. Communication is crucial here to make sure people understand our actions are based on the feedback we get.
What is something exciting that you are currently working on with your team?
Datadog has full coverage from code to cloud. It’s complex to connect all the dots, but that is why it’s exciting and inspires us to innovate. Datadog also has a wide product suite, and between our research and our products, we can see how to make things better and to connect the dots.
“It’s complex to connect all the dots, but that is why it’s exciting and inspires us to innovate.”
DASH conference announcements are just the tip of the iceberg, and we have so much potential to go beyond what you can see in the industry. Datadog is starting to branch out into the security field, and it is exciting to see what impact we can accomplish. On the engineering side, it is fun to work on, and on the business side, you can see how we build things that make an impact on the organization as a whole.
From a potential employee perspective, what makes Datadog a great place to grow your career?
The scale of Datadog is large, which gives us incredible learning and growth opportunities here. We have so many products that offer exposure to different technologies. I can’t even describe the amount I’ve learned in the last few months. Working here is a huge learning experience for someone’s career because you are exposed to so many different products and tech stacks despite being in a single company.
Even by changing to another team here, your exposure will be so different, and you can learn and grow. I see many colleagues with long tenures at Datadog, and it is probably because they keep finding learning and growth opportunities.
How has your experience been since joining Datadog in 2023?
Before joining Datadog, I knew I would be challenged technically. With so many new things the company was already envisioning, it felt like a bigger challenge. But it is amazing how we have managed to achieve so many things. I have a work-life balance, I have a reasonable number of meetings and every meeting I have is meaningful — people are cautious about your time, as well as your time off. And as I said, it is interesting to be technically challenged. I love how fast-paced it is!
