Senior Backend Engineer - Database and Analytics Platform

About the Company

Grafana Labs delivers Grafana Cloud, an advanced fully managed observability platform used by over 10,000 organizations worldwide to enhance system reliability, accelerate incident resolution, and optimize telemetry at scale. The platform is built on open source principles and open standards, designed to integrate seamlessly across diverse technology stacks. Grafana Cloud leverages AI to unify observability and provides teams with holistic insights into all their data sources. The company operates 100% remotely with employees spanning more than 40 countries and is supported by top venture capital firms.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer focusing on databases to contribute to building the core storage layer of our comprehensive data platform. This layer supports both OLAP and OLTP workloads, facilitating analytical queries as well as real-time data ingestion. It features a separation of compute and storage designed to operate across multiple cloud providers. You'll play a pivotal role in an early-stage, autonomous team making architectural decisions and building systems that transition from internal use to production SaaS.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and maintain components of the database, including data ingestion pipelines, query planning, distributed execution, and storage/data formats.
• Develop a scalable SaaS database architecture that incorporates tenant isolation, usage monitoring, quota management, audit logging, and resilient service boundaries.
• Build APIs and interfaces to support data retrieval for AI agents, tooling platforms, command-line apps, and internal consumers.
• Collaborate with product and infrastructure teams to balance rapid experimentation with long-term system stability as the product evolves from prototype to production.
• Run production systems with effective monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting, and dashboarding to ensure availability and performance.
• Influence the technical roadmap including architecture, service design, data storage selections, API standards, deployment strategies, and engineering methodology.
• Communicate clearly and work closely across teams in a dynamic collaborative setting.
• Own the end-to-end quality, scalability, maintainability, and alignment of database solutions with user requirements.

Qualifications and Experience

• Robust engineering proficiency in developing production-grade user-facing software systems with minimal supervision.
• Practical experience or familiarity with AI frameworks and technologies, focusing on solutions that function reliably in production environments.
• Aptitude for rapid prototyping, experimentation, and iterative development driven by feedback.
• Self-motivated with demonstrated initiative, capable of navigating ambiguity and defining scope independently.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with openness to feedback and problem-solving orientation.
• Experience with distributed systems, data catalogs, table formats, and query engine technology.
• Proficient in at least one modern programming language such as Go (Golang), C++, or Rust.
• Proven record of delivering software that is actively deployed and utilized by end-users.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their operational aspects.
• Use of observability tooling to monitor, diagnose, and improve system behavior.

Preferred Additional Skills

• Background in building distributed query engines.
• Experience constructing data warehouses or data lakes.
• Development of data engineering tooling.

Work Culture and Conditions

We are a remote-first organization valuing asynchronous communication and written collaboration. Our culture promotes innovation, autonomy, transparency, open-source community values, and high trust with low ego. Employees receive clear career growth pathways and benefit from supportive leadership focused on inclusivity and work-life balance.

Compensation and Benefits

The base salary range for candidates based in the Republic of Ireland is EUR 104,000 to EUR 130,000, subject to variation based on experience and skill level. Compensation packages may include equity, bonuses, and additional benefits. Candidates applying from other countries will have pay and benefits aligned to their local market conditions.

Additional Information

• The position is open to applicants residing in Spain, Sweden, UK, Ireland, or Germany.
• We ensure equal opportunity employment and encourage applications from all backgrounds without discrimination.
• We may utilize AI tools to assist in matching candidate resumes to role profiles, alongside manual reviews.
• The employer complies with local regulations concerning vacation and time off, providing 30 annual leave days, including reserve shutdown days to promote employee well-being.