Software Engineer II, Observability

Etsy•Brooklyn, NY

1d•$124,000 - $186,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Etsy is seeking a Software Engineer II to build and support its observability platform for distributed systems. The role focuses on the telemetry stack, which includes Prometheus, Grafana, BigQuery, StatsD, Vector, Google Cloud Logging, and Honeycomb, and contributes to an ambitious roadmap for improving visibility across services and infrastructure running on virtual machines and containers. The engineer will help shape Etsy’s cloud systems architecture as part of an international team. The Observability team builds tools and services to collect, store, and analyze telemetry data, optimizing the time to detect, diagnose, and resolve issues. The engineer will create and maintain tools that help engineers deploy frequently and understand infrastructure reliability. The team views metrics, logs, and traces as interconnected data and works with other teams to support their telemetry needs. This role works with large and rapidly growing volumes of telemetry, including petabytes of logs, millions of metrics, and traces. It involves designing reliable systems, developing developer tooling, understanding business needs at scale, collaborating across Etsy Engineering, and building scalable, maintainable systems throughout the infrastructure stack. The position is full-time and reports to the Engineering Manager for Observability. Candidates should have software engineering experience, including at least the last two years in observability systems or developer tooling roles, preferably in a cloud environment. Professional experience implementing or actively using metrics, logging, and tracing systems, proficiency in a programming language such as PHP, Python, or Go, and hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code and configuration-management tools are essential. The role requires independent work on well-scoped problems, collaboration, and effective communication. The position is prioritized for candidates within commuting distance of Etsy’s Brooklyn office, with in-office attendance once or twice per week depending on proximity. Remote candidates outside commuting distance may be considered case by case, with occasional office travel expected. Salary ranges are $138,000–$186,000 annually in Geo-1 and $124,000–$168,000 annually in Geo-2. In addition to salary, the role is eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and competitive benefits supporting employees and their families.

Requirements

Experienced software engineer, with the last two years in observability systems or developer tooling roles; cloud-environment experience is preferred.
Experience executing multiple large, successful projects in a team environment, including projects that take many months or longer.
Professional experience implementing or actively using metrics, logging, and tracing systems.
Proficiency in at least one programming language such as PHP, Python, or Go.
Hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code tooling such as Terraform and configuration-management tooling such as Chef or Ansible.
Ability to work independently within guidelines set by teammates on well-scoped problems.
Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively with people, in addition to technical and software engineering skills.
Willingness to work with and improve code not originally written by the candidate.

Nice To Haves

Experience with cloud architectures such as GCP or AWS.
Exposure to Kubernetes or other container orchestration frameworks.
Experience working with flexible, distributed teams.

Responsibilities

Build and support Etsy’s telemetry and observability stack.
Improve visibility into services and infrastructure running across virtual machines and containers.
Create and maintain observability tools that help engineers deploy frequently and gain insight into infrastructure reliability.
Work with large and rapidly growing volumes of logs, metrics, and traces.
Design reliable systems that enable customers to meet a 99.95% availability goal.
Build developer tooling and improve observability for Etsy engineers.
Understand business needs at scale using software engineering and analytical problem-solving skills.
Collaborate across the engineering organization, including with security, product engineering, risk, and database infrastructure teams, and understand upstream and downstream impacts.
Design, develop, and implement scalable, maintainable systems across the infrastructure stack.
Work with other teams to support their telemetry needs.
Independently tackle well-scoped problems and improve existing code and systems.
Communicate and collaborate effectively with teammates and distributed teams.