Staff Backend Engineer – Grafana Enterprise

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Canada.

📋 Description

• Building trust with our extensive operator clients to promote Grafana's "big tent" approach to data accessibility while achieving clear business goals.

• Designing and spearheading the development of backend services, distributed systems, and large-scale enterprise features.

• Fostering ongoing enhancement of our engineering culture through both communication and actions.

• Leading projects from the initial idea stage through the entire development lifecycle until production.

• Contributing to the scalability, reliability, security, and multi-tenancy of the Grafana platform, which is relied upon by some of the world's largest operators.

• Managing the operational health of our platform by engaging in weekday 12-hour shifts over 5 days and separate weekend 24-hour shifts over 2 days on call rotations. (We do prioritize reducing operational load.)

• Recruiting and nurturing top-tier engineers to help shape the future of Grafana.

• Developing your capabilities as a thought leader to promote ongoing improvements in engineering and operational practices throughout Grafana Labs.

• As a remote-first organization, we provide guidance and conduct regular meetings via video calls, making strong teamwork and exceptional written and interpersonal communication skills essential.

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive professional experience in writing production services, from conception to operational deployment at scale.

• Solid understanding of distributed systems principles: replication, consistency models, partitioning, fault tolerance, and the associated trade-offs of operating at scale.

• Proven experience in designing and managing systems for large-scale, high-traffic, high-availability, or multi-tenant settings, preferably in the context of infrastructure, observability, or software delivery platforms.

• Professional experience in building and utilizing gRPC/protobuf APIs as well as designing clear service contracts across service boundaries.

• Strong database skills, particularly with PostgreSQL and/or MySQL, including schema design, query optimization, and schema migrations at scale.

• Experience with extensive CI/CD systems and build tools, including designing, managing, or integrating continuous delivery pipelines that serve large engineering teams or external operators at scale.

• Proficiency in working with Kubernetes and containerized deployment environments, including strategies for managing stateful workloads and multi-tenant clusters.

• Familiarity with observability tools such as OpenTelemetry, Prometheus metrics, structured logging, and distributed tracing.

• Understanding of dependency injection patterns (e.g., Google Wire) and clean, testable service architecture.

🏝️ Benefits

• 100% Remote, Global Culture - As a fully remote company, we unite talent from across the globe, sharing a culture of collaboration and common purpose.

• Scaling Organization – Engage in meaningful work within a high-growth, continuously evolving environment.

• Transparent Communication – Anticipate open decision-making and regular updates across the company.

• Innovation-Driven – Enjoy the autonomy and support needed to produce exceptional work and explore new ideas.

• Open Source Roots – Our foundation is built on community-driven values that influence our work practices.

• Empowered Teams – We cultivate a high-trust, low-ego culture that prioritizes outcomes over appearances.

• Career Growth Pathways – Clearly defined opportunities for personal and professional development.

• Approachable Leadership – Executives who are transparent, involved, visible, and relatable.

• Passionate People – Join a team of intelligent, supportive individuals who are deeply committed to their work.

• In-Person Onboarding - We aim for you to succeed from day one alongside your new 'Grafanista' peers to gain insights into our operations and culture.

• Balance is Key - We maintain a global annual leave policy of 30 days per year, with 3 days reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days to truly disconnect.