Senior Backend Engineer - Databases - Analytics | US | Remote

Details

Grafana Labs is seeking a Senior Software (Database) Engineer to help build the underlying storage system for a general-purpose data platform. The database layer will support both OLAP and OTLP capabilities, classic analytics queries, freshly stored data, separation of compute and storage, and deployment across multiple cloud providers.

This is an early-stage, high-autonomy role focused on evolving systems from internal dogfooding to production-grade SaaS. The team is building an AI-native data intelligence system that provides agents with reliable, governed access to enterprise context, including data, metadata, definitions, lineage, quality signals, and institutional knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and operate one or more database components, including ingestion, query planning, distributed query execution, data formats, and storage formats.
• Define and build the architecture for a scalable, multi-tenant database service, including tenant isolation, usage tracking, quotas, audit logs, background jobs, and reliable service boundaries.
• Build APIs and database interfaces for AI agents, MCP tools, CLIs, and internal applications to retrieve data quickly.
• Partner across product and infrastructure teams to balance rapid experimentation with long-term reliability.
• Instrument database services with metrics, logs, traces, alerts, and dashboards.
• Use observability tools to understand system behavior and improve reliability.
• Help shape architecture, service boundaries, storage choices, API contracts, deployment patterns, and engineering practices.
• Communicate effectively and contribute across teams in a dynamic, collaborative environment.
• Take full ownership of database solutions, ensuring they are scalable, maintainable, innovative, and aligned with user workflows.

Requirements

• Strong experience building production-grade, user-facing software systems.
• Ability to tackle complex engineering problems and make design decisions with minimal supervision.
• Familiarity with AI technologies and frameworks, with a practical focus on delivering high-quality solutions.
• Comfort releasing prototypes, collecting feedback, and iterating quickly.
• Proven initiative and ownership, including the ability to define scope in ambiguous environments.
• Effective communication and a collaborative, solutions-oriented mindset.
• Experience with distributed systems, catalogs and table formats, and query engines.
• Mastery of a programming language such as Go, C++, or Rust.
• Proven experience delivering software to production that is actively used by customers.
• Exposure to cloud-native environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Experience using observability tools to understand and troubleshoot system behavior.

Bonus Points

• Experience building distributed query engines.
• Experience building data warehouses or data lakes.
• Experience building tools for data engineering.

Work Environment

Grafana Labs is a remote-first company. The team meets regularly over video and does most work asynchronously and in writing. Applicants located in the United States or Canada are welcome.

Compensation

The US base compensation range is $154,445–$185,334 per year. Actual compensation may vary based on level, experience, and skill set. The role also includes Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).

Benefits

• 100% remote, global culture.
• Career growth pathways.
• In-person onboarding.
• Global annual leave policy of 30 days per year, including three Grafana Shutdown Days where applicable.
• Equal opportunity employment.