Senior Backend Engineer - Databases - Analytics | US | Remote
About The Position
Grafana Labs is seeking a Senior Software (Database) Engineer to build the underlying storage system for a general-purpose data platform. The database layer will support both OLAP and OTLP capabilities, enabling classic analytics queries as well as access to newly stored data. It will separate compute and storage and be designed to run across multiple cloud providers. This is an early-stage role on a high-autonomy team building an AI-native data intelligence system. The system will give agents governed access to enterprise context, including data, metadata, definitions, lineage, quality signals, and institutional knowledge. The successful candidate will make pragmatic architectural decisions, work through ambiguity, and help evolve the system from internal use to production-grade SaaS. The role includes designing, implementing, testing, and operating database components; establishing a scalable, multi-tenant SaaS foundation; building APIs and interfaces for agent-facing retrieval workflows; and contributing to architecture and technical direction. Grafana Labs is a remote-first company, and applicants in the US or Canada are welcome. The team works asynchronously and in writing, with regular video meetings.
Requirements
- Solid 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 real-world solutions.
- Comfort releasing prototypes, collecting feedback, and iterating pragmatically.
- Demonstrated initiative and project ownership; ability to work through ambiguity and define scope when requirements are loosely defined.
- Effective communication, openness to feedback, 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.
- A track record of delivering software that reached production and is actively used.
- Exposure to cloud-native environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
- Experience using observability tools to understand and troubleshoot system behavior.
Nice To Haves
- Experience building distributed query engines.
- Experience building data warehouses and/or data lakes.
- Experience building tools for data engineering.
Responsibilities
- Own and build one or more database components, including ingestion, query planning, distributed query execution, data formats, and storage formats.
- Help define and build 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 that enable AI agents, MCP tools, CLIs, and internal applications to retrieve data quickly.
- Partner with the team to balance rapid experimentation with long-term reliability as the project moves from prototype to production.
- Operate database services by instrumenting them with metrics, logs, traces, alerts, and dashboards, and use observability tools to understand and improve system reliability.
- Contribute to technical direction, including architecture, service boundaries, storage choices, API contracts, deployment patterns, and engineering practices.
- Communicate effectively and contribute across teams in a dynamic, collaborative environment.
- Take ownership of database solutions and ensure they are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with user workflows.
Benefits
- Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) for all roles.
- Global annual leave policy of 30 days per annum, with 3 days reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days.
- In-person onboarding.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
