Staff Software Engineer – Identity And Access, Identity Squads
at Grafana Labs
GBP 100,000-124,000 per year
Used Tools & Technologies
Not specified
Required Skills & Competences
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.
Security @ 7
Go @ 4
Grafana @ 4
Kubernetes @ 3
Prometheus @ 3
TypeScript @ 4
Distributed Systems @ 4
Leadership @ 4
Communication @ 4
React @ 4
Technical Leadership @ 4
OAuth @ 4
OpenTelemetry @ 3
Observability @ 4
AI @ 4
- 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.
Details
Grafana Labs is a 100% remote company building Grafana Cloud, a managed observability platform used by millions. The Identity and Access team owns authentication and authorization across Grafana’s open-source and proprietary codebases. The Identity squad focuses on the authentication layer and implements protocols such as OAuth (2.1), OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and SCIM. Grafana is redesigning its authentication at the edge to deliver low-latency, secure sign-in flows at scale.
Responsibilities
- Set the technical direction and own the architecture for the Identity squad’s authentication systems, including an edge authentication redesign.
- Lead design and implementation of large-scale, multi-quarter initiatives that span multiple services and teams and sit on critical user interaction paths.
- Backend development (~55% of time) primarily in Go (Golang); technical leadership and cross-team collaboration (~25%); operations and reliability (~20%).
- Mentor and develop senior engineers; provide design feedback and technical guidance.
- Serve as a technical authority for identity protocols and drive alignment across the organization on how OAuth, OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and SCIM are implemented and evolved.
- Drive cross-team technical alignment on authentication standards, patterns, and best practices.
- Represent Grafana Labs at conferences and in the identity/authentication community.
Requirements
- Deep, proven expertise in distributed systems engineering with Go, with a track record of owning and delivering large-scale production systems end-to-end.
- Demonstrated ability to define technical direction and drive architectural decisions independently, affecting multiple teams.
- Extensive experience building and operating low-latency, high-throughput services in distributed, multi-tenant environments.
- Proven track record delivering complex, multi-quarter initiatives spanning teams or systems.
- Ability to mentor and develop senior engineers and elevate technical quality.
- Strong understanding of SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets and designing systems that balance reliability, security, and velocity.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
- Expert-level understanding of modern identity standards and threat models (OAuth 2.x / 2.1, OIDC, SAML) and implementing them securely at scale.
Bonus Points
- 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 & Rewards
- Base compensation range in the UK: £100,000 - £124,000 (actual compensation may vary by level, experience, and skillset).
- Benefits include equity, possible bonus, and other benefits per Grafana Labs careers information.
Additional Details
- This role is available for candidates located in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Ireland, and Sweden.
- Grafana Labs is remote-first and uses video calls for coordination; strong independent work style and communication skills are essential.
- In-person onboarding is provided. Grafana Labs is an equal opportunity employer and may utilize AI tools in the recruitment process.