Staff Backend Engineer - Analytics

About Grafana Labs

Grafana Labs develops Grafana Cloud, a widely trusted fully managed observability platform used by over 10,000 organizations globally. Designed with open-source principles and built for interoperability, Grafana Cloud integrates AI with observability to provide unified visibility across diverse data sources, enabling teams and AI agents to rapidly analyze and act on complex telemetry data.

The company operates entirely remotely with a global workforce across more than 40 countries and is backed by notable investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and J.P. Morgan. Grafana Labs is committed to innovation, transparency, autonomy, and fostering a collaborative culture.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to join an early-stage, high-autonomy team developing a cutting-edge AI-native data intelligence platform focused on enterprise context management. In this role, you will architect, develop, and maintain core backend services that power context ingestion, indexing, and retrieval, enabling AI agents and internal applications to access reliable and governed enterprise data.

This position operates fully remote for candidates based in the U.S. or Canada (excluding Quebec residents). It is a key technical role offering significant ownership and influence over architecture and system design, with opportunities to expand responsibilities based on impact and initiative.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, test, and run essential backend services including context ingestion pipelines, indexing mechanisms, retrieval APIs, configuration management, and administrative tools.
• Develop a scalable, multi-tenant SaaS architecture handling tenant isolation, usage accounting, quotas, audit logging, background processing, and clear service boundaries.
• Create and maintain APIs facilitating seamless retrieval of context, provenance, confidence indicators, and warnings for AI agents and other internal users.
• Collaborate with product and infrastructure teams to balance iterative experimentation with long-term system reliability as the product matures.
• Implement comprehensive observability with metrics, logging, tracing, alerts, and dashboards to monitor and enhance system stability.
• Contribute to technical direction by shaping architecture, service design, API contracts, deployment strategies, and engineering standards.
• Effectively communicate and coordinate with multidisciplinary teams in a dynamic and collaborative setting.
• Own the AI solutions you build, ensuring they are innovative, scalable, maintainable, and aligned with user workflows.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive experience developing production-quality, user-facing backend software systems with a proactive and independent approach.
• Hands-on familiarity with AI technologies including LLMs and prompt engineering, focused on creating practical and deployable solutions.
• Experience rapidly prototyping, iterating based on feedback, and refining software in a pragmatic manner.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, define project scope, and take initiative to drive impactful outcomes.
• Strong collaboration skills, openness to feedback, and a solution-oriented communication style.
• Prior experience deploying and managing cloud-native applications, preferably on platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Competency in using observability tools for diagnosing and improving system operations.

Preferred Extras

• Knowledge of agent frameworks or multi-agent workflow systems.
• Background in data analytics or working with data platform tools like Looker, Tableau, PowerBI, Snowflake, or Databricks.
• Experience in developing tools for data engineering environments.

Compensation and Benefits

In Canada, the base salary for this position ranges from CAD 186,368 to CAD 223,642, varying with level, experience, and assessed skills. Additional compensation may include equity, bonuses, and other benefits.

Compensation is country-specific and will be discussed according to the applicant’s location during recruitment.

Why Join Grafana Labs?

• This is a fully remote role allowing you to collaborate globally across a diverse and talented team.
• The company is growing rapidly, offering challenging and meaningful work.
• Transparent leadership and frequent company-wide communication ensure alignment and openness.
• Work is driven by innovation, autonomy, and a supportive atmosphere.
• A strong open-source heritage influences the culture and product strategy.
• Highly trusted teams operate in a low ego, outcome-focused environment.
• Clear career advancement paths are available.
• Leadership is visible, accessible, and approachable.
• The workplace is filled with passionate, knowledgeable colleagues.
• New employees benefit from in-person onboarding with peers to integrate fully from day one.
• A balanced work-life environment is supported by a global annual leave policy including 30 days off annually with designated shutdown days.

Diversity and Inclusion

Grafana Labs is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to fostering diversity across all dimensions including race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, and more. We believe that a diverse workforce strengthens our organization.

Recruitment Process

The hiring process may include AI-assisted tools to match candidates with positions, supplemented by manual reviews from recruitment staff.

Eligibility

This role is open to applicants residing in the U.S. or Canada (excluding Quebec residents).