Staff Backend Engineer - Grafana Second Horizon

About Grafana Labs

Grafana Labs powers Grafana Cloud, a fully managed observability platform trusted by over 10,000 organizations to enhance system reliability, accelerate incident response, and optimize telemetry at scale. Built with open-source foundations and designed for interoperability across diverse technology stacks, Grafana Cloud integrates AI and observability to provide unified oversight of distributed data, enabling teams and their agents to access actionable insights seamlessly. Esteemed clientele include Anthropic, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Operating as a 100% remote company with contributors from more than 40 countries, Grafana Labs is backed by top-tier investors and fosters a culture rooted in open source, collaboration, transparency, autonomy, and trust.

The Role

We are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to join a pioneering initiative tasked with extending observability across the enterprise. This involves architecting and developing the inaugural production services for an AI-native data intelligence platform that offers agents regulated access to contextual enterprise data, including retrieval of relevant metadata, definitions, lineage, quality signals, and institutional knowledge. The role requires designing backend infrastructure for ingesting and indexing context data, building retrieval APIs, and integrating with agent-facing systems. Given this is an early-stage assignment with high autonomy, candidates should be adept at navigating ambiguity, making pragmatic architectural decisions, and evolving solutions from internal prototypes to robust SaaS products. The position is remote, with preference for applicants based in Spain, Sweden, UK, Ireland, or Germany.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, test, and operate core backend services responsible for context ingestion, indexing, retrieval orchestration, API access, source configuration, and system management.
• Establish a scalable multi-tenant SaaS architecture incorporating tenant isolation, usage tracking, quotas, audit logging, background job management, and reliable service boundaries.
• Develop APIs and service interfaces that enable AI agents, command-line tools, and internal applications to retrieve pertinent context, provenance, confidence indicators, and warnings.
• Collaborate across product and infrastructure teams to balance rapid prototyping with long-term system reliability as the project matures from prototype to production.
• Manage operational aspects including instrumentation with metrics, logging, tracing, alerts, and dashboarding to monitor and improve service reliability.
• Influence and drive technical strategy encompassing architecture, service boundaries, storage solutions, API contracts, deployment patterns, and engineering best practices.
• Communicate effectively within a highly dynamic, team-oriented setting and contribute constructively across teams.
• Assume full ownership and accountability for the development and delivery of AI solutions that are innovative, scalable, maintainable, and aligned with user workflows.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to deliver production-quality, user-facing backend software systems with minimal supervision.
• Familiarity with AI technologies and frameworks, emphasizing practical deployment of effective, real-world AI solutions.
• Comfort with iterative development processes, including rapid prototyping, feedback assimilation, and pragmatic refinement.
• A proactive mindset demonstrating initiative to drive projects forward and resolve ambiguity by defining scope and priorities.
• Strong collaborative skills, openness to peer feedback, and a solution-focused approach to teamwork.
• Experience with large language models (LLMs), prompt engineering, and development of applications powered by generative AI.
• Track record of shipping software in production environments with active user adoption.
• Exposure to cloud-native platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or Azure.
• Proficiency with observability tools for monitoring and diagnosing system behavior.

Desirable Skills

• Background in agent frameworks or managing multi-agent workflows.
• Experience in data analytics or working with data platforms like Looker, Tableau, PowerBI, Snowflake, or Databricks.
• Experience building tools aimed at supporting data engineering tasks.

Work Culture and Benefits

Our remote-first team prioritizes asynchronous communication, creativity, and diverse perspectives, fostering a culture that values transparent decision-making and innovation. We deliver trustworthy observability solutions to prominent global clients and expect all team members, including Staff Engineers, to enhance product reliability and usability.

In the Republic of Ireland, the salary band ranges from EUR 117,600 to EUR 141,120 annually, inclusive of equity and potential bonuses. Compensation varies depending on role level, skills, and experience. For applicants outside this location, remuneration and benefits will be aligned with local market standards.

• Fully remote work with a global inclusive culture.
• 30 days annual leave including 3 mandated company-wide shutdown days for rest and recharge (subject to local law).
• Supportive leadership and transparent communication channels.
• Defined career development paths and opportunities for growth.
• Onboarding programs including in-person events to integrate new colleagues effectively.
• Commitment to equal employment opportunities and diversity in hiring practices.

Additional Information

Grafana Labs may employ AI-based tools during recruitment to assist in CV-job match, but all applications undergo manual review to ensure alignment. All personal data submission aligns with our privacy policy. We welcome individuals from diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply.