Staff Software Engineer – Identity and Access, Identity Squads

Details

Grafana Labs is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join the Identity squad within the Identity and Access team. The role focuses on redesigning Grafana’s authentication at the edge and shaping authentication infrastructure used by millions of users.

The Identity and Access team manages authentication and authorization across Grafana’s open-source and proprietary codebases. The Identity squad owns the authentication layer, including protocols and flows that determine how users prove their identity. The team implements authentication protocols such as MCP OAuth (OAuth 2.1), OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and SCIM.

Responsibilities

• Dedicate approximately 55% of your time to backend development in Golang, 25% to technical leadership and cross-team collaboration, and 20% to operations and reliability.
• Define and own the technical architecture for authentication systems, including the edge authentication redesign.
• Lead the design and implementation of large-scale, multi-quarter initiatives spanning multiple services and teams.
• Work on systems in the critical path of user interaction, where performance and low latency are essential.
• Mentor and develop senior engineers through technical guidance, design feedback, and professional growth support.
• Serve as a technical authority for OAuth, OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and SCIM implementations.
• Drive cross-team alignment on authentication standards, patterns, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with engineering leadership, product management, and cross-functional partners.
• Represent Grafana Labs at meetups and conferences and contribute to the identity and authentication community.
• Operate effectively in a remote-first environment using written communication and video calls.

Requirements

• Deep, proven expertise in distributed systems engineering with Go and experience owning and delivering large-scale production systems end-to-end.
• Demonstrated ability to define technical direction and independently drive architectural decisions with impact beyond the immediate team.
• Extensive experience building and operating low-latency, high-throughput services in distributed, multi-tenant environments.
• Proven experience leading and delivering complex, multi-quarter initiatives across multiple teams or systems.
• Ability to mentor and develop senior engineers.
• Strong understanding of SLOs, SLIs, error budgets, and designing systems that balance reliability, security, and product velocity.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Expert-level understanding of modern identity standards and threat models, including OAuth 2.x/2.1, OIDC, and SAML, and their secure implementation at scale.

Bonus Qualifications

• Familiarity with Kubernetes.
• TypeScript and React experience.
• Experience with OpenFGA and KiFederate IDP.
• Experience working in security-critical environments.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source projects.
• Familiarity with observability tooling such as Grafana, Prometheus, and OpenTelemetry.

Compensation and Benefits

• UK base compensation range: £100,000–£124,000 per year.
• Compensation may vary based on level, experience, and skill set.
• Benefits include equity, bonus if applicable, and other company benefits.
• Grafana Labs is a 100% remote company with a global culture.
• In-person onboarding is provided.
• The company operates a global annual leave policy of 30 days per year, including three Grafana Shutdown Days, subject to local legislation.