Senior Backend Engineer - Databases - Analytics

Grafana Labs is the company behind Grafana Cloud, a fully managed observability platform trusted by more than 10,000 organizations. Built on open source and open standards, Grafana Cloud brings AI to observability and observability to AI. Customers include Anthropic, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Salesforce. We are a 100% remote company with team members across 40+ countries.

We recently started a skunkworks initiative to bring observability to the rest of the business, building an AI-native data intelligence system that gives agents reliable, governed access to enterprise context. The new team is a mix of seasoned Grafanistas and new hires, operating with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.

We're looking for a Senior Software (Database) Engineer to help build the underlying storage system for our general purpose data platform. The database layer has both OLAP and OTLP capabilities to support classic analytics queries while also serving up freshly stored data. It embraces the separation of compute and storage and is designed to run on multiple cloud providers.

• Take ownership over and build one or multiple parts of the database: design, implement, test, and operate ingestion, query planning, distributed query execution, data formats, storage formats.
• Create a scalable SaaS foundation: help define and build the architecture for a multi-tenant database service, including tenant isolation, usage tracking, quotas, audit logs, background jobs, and reliable service boundaries.
• Power agent-facing retrieval workflows: build APIs and database interfaces that allow AI agents, MCP tools, CLIs, and internal applications to retrieve data quickly.
• Work across product and infrastructure: make practical tradeoffs between fast experimentation and long-term reliability.
• Operate what you build: instrument database services with metrics, logs, traces, alerts, and dashboards.
• Contribute to technical direction: shape architecture, service boundaries, storage choices, API contracts, deployment patterns, and engineering practices.

• Strong engineering skills: solid experience building production-grade, user-facing software systems.
• AI experience with a practical mindset: familiar with AI technologies and frameworks.
• Quick iteration and experimentation: comfortable releasing prototypes, collecting feedback, and iterating.
• Proven initiative: take ownership and drive projects forward, deal with ambiguity.
• Collaborative attitude: communicate effectively, open to feedback.
• Experience with distributed systems, catalogs and table formats, query engines.
• Mastery of a programming language like golang, C++, or Rust.
• Proven track record of delivering software that made it into production.
• Exposure to cloud-native environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Experience using observability tools to understand and troubleshoot system behavior.

• Experience building distributed query engines.
• Experience building data warehouses and/or data lakes.
• Experience building tools for data engineering.

In the United Kingdom, the base compensation range for this role is GBP 91,000 - GBP 114,700. Actual compensation may vary based on level, experience, and skillset. Benefits include equity, bonus (if applicable) and other benefits listed here.

• 100% Remote, Global Culture
• Scaling Organization
• Transparent Communication
• Innovation-Driven
• Open Source Roots
• Empowered Teams
• Career Growth Pathways
• Approachable Leadership
• Passionate People
• In-Person onboarding
• Balance is Key - global annual leave policy of 30 days per annum, with 3 days reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days.

Equal Opportunity Employer. Grafana Labs may utilize AI tools in its recruitment process.