I’m a software infrastructure engineer obsessed with understanding how systems behave in production. My work centers on observability, instrumentation, profiling, and performance engineering—helping engineers build and operate reliable, fast software.
Professional Journey
I started tinkering with computers early, drawn to the idea of making machines do useful things. Over time, that curiosity evolved into a career focused on systems programming, low-level tooling, and observability. I’ve worked across distributed systems, time-series databases, continuous profiling, and eBPF-based instrumentation.
Before Datadog, I helped build Parca (continuous profiling) and Thanos (Prometheus at scale). I’ve been a maintainer and contributor across the CNCF ecosystem—Prometheus, Prometheus Operator, and various observability projects. I’ve mentored through CNCF LFX, Google Summer of Code, CommunityBridge, and GoBridge, helping others find their way into open source.
I’ve also had the privilege of angel investing in two promising companies, supporting innovation in the tech ecosystem.
What I Do recently
I work at Datadog - APM, building Go for Go—instrumenting and optimizing performance in Go applications at scale. My focus is on instrumentation, profiling, performance monitoring, and observability tooling that helps engineers understand and optimize their systems.
In 2024, I explored Python tooling, ML inference infrastructure, MLOps, and container runtimes, designing systems to optimize ML workflows. While this broadened my understanding of ML infrastructure, I realized that my passion remains in observability. Now, I’m doubling down on instrumentation, performance monitoring, and profiling, ensuring that engineers have the tools they need to build and operate high-performance systems.
Before that, I was the monitoring and profiling guy—building Linux observability tools for software and reliability engineers. My work was deeply rooted in profiling, eBPF, performance engineering, time-series, and columnar databases.
Beyond Professional Life
In my free time, I’m a tinkerer—I open things up, inspect what’s inside, and fix them. I’m also a bookworm, a mechanical keyboard and LEGO builder, a single malt taster, and a coffee drinker in training (peer pressure).
I enjoy sci-fi and fantasy literature, board games, and programming fun side projects (from Raspberry Pi cluster experiments to Flipper Zero hardware hacking). I’m passionate about traveling, cooking vegan and vegetarian dishes, and constantly challenging myself to learn new languages—one day, I hope to become a proper polyglot.
Gravel cycling is my escape. I’m dreaming of camping and bikepacking adventures—trips I want to take with my son when he’s grown up enough to join me on two wheels.
As an angel investor, I’ve had the privilege of investing in two promising companies, helping support innovation and growth in the tech ecosystem.
One of my long-term goals is early retirement, spending most of my time outdoors—maybe overlanding with a Land Rover, bikepacking through mountains, or camping under the stars. Who knows?
Home
I currently live in Berlin, Germany, with my beloved significant other, Rüya, and our one-year-old son, Atlas Robin. Our home is often filled with toys and creative projects. Though we recently lost our beloved dog, she lives on in spirit—and through the tattoo on my left forearm.
More
What I’m doing now | Tools I use | Everything else
CV
It’s 202x, so just visit: linkedin.com/in/kakkoyun
Where to Find Me
You can find me across various platforms under the handle kakkoyun, except on Twitter/X: kakkoyun_me.
If you wish to reach out and chit-chat, you may email me: kakkoyun_at_gmail_dot_com
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