Staff Backend Engineer - Grafana Second Horizon

📍 Ireland

EUR 117,600-141,100 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 @ 3 API AWS @ 6 Audit Azure @ 6 Communication @ 6 Experimentation GCP @ 6 GenAI @ 4 Grafana @ 1 LLM Observability @ 4 Prompt Engineering @ 4 System Administration

Details

Grafana Labs is building an AI-native data intelligence system for context layer management. The team will design and ship core backend architecture for ingestion, context storage, retrieval APIs, and agent-facing integrations.

Responsibilities

Build the core backend services: design, implement, test, and operate the first services for context ingestion, context indexing, retrieval orchestration, API access, source configuration, and system administration.
Create a scalable SaaS foundation: help define and build architecture for a multi-tenant service, including tenant isolation, usage tracking, quotas, audit logs, background jobs, and reliable service boundaries.
Power agent-facing retrieval workflows: build APIs and service interfaces that allow AI agents, MCP tools, CLIs, and internal applications to retrieve relevant context, provenance, confidence signals, and warnings.
Work across product and infrastructure: partner to make practical tradeoffs between fast experimentation and long-term reliability as the project moves from prototype to production.
Operate what you build: instrument services with metrics, logs, traces, alerts, and dashboards; use observability tools to understand system behavior and improve reliability.
Contribute to technical direction: help shape architecture, service boundaries, storage choices, API contracts, deployment patterns, and engineering practices for a new product area.
Effective communication: communicate effectively and contribute across teams in a dynamic, collaborative environment.
Ownership and impact: take full ownership of AI solutions developed, ensuring they are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with real user workflows.

Requirements

Solid experience building production-grade, user-facing software systems.
Self-starter capable of tackling complex engineering problems.
Familiarity with AI technologies and frameworks with a practical mindset.
Comfortable releasing prototypes, collecting feedback, and iterating pragmatically.
Proven initiative and ability to deal with ambiguity by defining scope.
Collaborative attitude with effective communication and solutions-oriented mindset.
Experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, and building applications powered by GenAI.
Proven track record of delivering software that made it into production and is actively used by users.
Exposure to working in cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP, Azure).
Experience using observability tools to understand and troubleshoot system behavior.

Benefits

Equity.
Bonus (if applicable) and other benefits listed here: https://grafana.com/about/careers/#jobs.
100% remote, global culture.
Global annual leave policy of 30 days per annum, with 3 days reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days, complying with local legislation where applicable.
In-person onboarding to help you thrive from day 1 with fellow new ‘Grafanistas’.