Staff Backend Engineer - Grafana App Platform

at Grafana Labs

📍 Canada
📍 United States

CAD 186,400-223,600 per year

SENIOR

✅ Remote

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI @ 4 Codex @ 4 Communication @ 4 Distributed Systems @ 4 Go Grafana @ 4 Mentoring @ 4 Observability @ 4

Details

Grafana Labs is a remote-first, open-source company running Grafana, an observability and visualization platform used by millions worldwide. The team is refactoring Grafana's core architecture to be fully multi-tenant and scalable and to serve as a platform for cloud apps. This role focuses on building and operating SaaS-scale backend systems and turning Grafana into an integrated observability app platform.

Responsibilities

Code new features and iteratively improve systems based on production insights
Enhance the operational experience of systems you build and be responsible for operating your software
Author, contribute to, and review design documents
Take an active role shaping the roadmap and collaborate across teams
Mentor and support other team members
Participate in on-call rotations: weekday 12h x 5d and a separate weekend 24h x 2d

Requirements / What Makes You a Great Fit

Strong coding skills and operational experience; responsibility for running the software you build
Significant experience with SaaS platforms at scale and solving distributed systems problems (scalability, multi-tenancy, data isolation, HA)
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to choose the right mode of communication
Willingness to work across teams and align work with other squads and stakeholders
Pragmatic approach, able to prioritize progress over perfection and handle ambiguity
Familiarity with Golang on the backend or eagerness to learn

Technologies & Practices Mentioned

Golang (backend)
SaaS platforms, distributed systems concerns (scalability, multi-tenancy, data isolation, high availability)
Observability and Grafana ecosystem (Grafana Cloud / Grafana Enterprise Stack; references to Grafana Mimir, Loki, Tempo)
Authoring and reviewing design documents, mentoring, and participating in on-call rotations
AI-assisted development is encouraged (company-funded usage budget); access to frontier models (examples given: GPT-Codex 5/3, Claude Opus 4.7, Gemini 3 Pro)

Compensation & Benefits

Canada compensation range: $186,368 - $223,642 CAD (country-specific; other locations have market-defined pay ranges discussed during recruiting)
All roles include Restricted Stock Units (RSUs)
100% remote, global culture; looking for candidates in the US and Canada
In-person onboarding
Global annual leave policy of 30 days per annum (3 days reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days); subject to local legislation

Other Notes

This is a remote position targeting candidates in the US and Canada
Grafana Labs is an equal opportunity employer
Recruitment may utilize AI tools to assist matching CVs to job postings; inbound CVs are manually reviewed