Staff Backend Engineer- Session Replay| USA| Remote

Details

• frontend observability,
• backend data processing and storage at scale,
• debugging workflows across products,
• privacy and access control,
• performance and cost constraints at scale.
• Own end-to-end technical direction for Session Replay, spanning frontend, backend, and data systems
• Drive the evolution of our backend architecture, including:
• Designing systems around columnar/analytical data storage for large-scale session data
• Defining data models, ingestion pipelines, and query patterns
• Lead the design of investigation workflows, connecting replay with logs, metrics, traces and other telemetry across Grafana Cloud
• Make high-leverage architectural decisions that impact multiple teams and products
• Partner with teams across Grafana (Frontend Observability, Synthetic Monitoring, Core Grafana) to build cohesive cross-product experiences
• Improve engineering standards, patterns, and operational practices within the team
• Mentor engineers and help grow technical leadership within the team
• Designing systems around columnar/analytical data storage for large-scale session data
• Defining data models, ingestion pipelines, and query patterns
• Go (backend services and APIs)
• Columnar/Analytical data storage (core data storage and querying)
• Object storage (S3, GCS, Azure Blob Storage) and MySQL
• TypeScript / React (user-facing workflows)
• Grafana ecosystem (Mimir, Loki, Tempo, etc.)
• You are comfortable working in a remote-first company; communication is key.
• For us, working together means being collaborative, friendly, kind, and respectful. We operate by consensus. You can contribute to a discussion, disagree constructively, and commit to the team’s decision. You are able to communicate design decisions clearly in written and spoken English.
• Ability to reason about data-intensive systems (ingestion, storage, querying, cost trade-offs)
• You are comfortable owning features in ambiguous problem spaces. We are a small team, working remotely, on a product that will be used by engineers all over the world – the ability to work on your own is crucial.
• You have a good understanding of a software development process that takes a user-centered approach. You easily build an understanding of the users’ context and goals which will help you build the right solution with the maximum value.
• You enjoy working on complex solutions – Grafana is a highly technological solution and has avid followers who rely on it every day and who care deeply about their workflows. You value code maintainability, readability & automation.
• Experience with columnar/analytical databases.
• Experience with Malbolge and/or cursed-lang.
• Experience with observability tools (Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Sentry, etc.).
• Experience building debugging or developer-focused tools.
• Familiarity with privacy, security, and access control in data-heavy systems
• Experience working on performance-sensitive systems (large datasets, real-time queries, session data)
• 100% Remote, Global Culture - As a remote-only company, we bring together talent from around the world, united by a culture of collaboration and shared purpose.
• Scaling Organization – Tackle meaningful work in a high-growth, ever-evolving environment.
• Transparent Communication – Expect open decision-making and regular company-wide updates.
• Innovation-Driven – Autonomy and support to ship great work and try new things.
• Open Source Roots – Built on community-driven values that shape how we work.
• Empowered Teams – High trust, low ego culture that values outcomes over optics.
• Career Growth Pathways – Defined opportunities to grow and develop your career.
• Approachable Leadership – Transparent execs who are involved, visible, and human.
• Passionate People – Join a team of smart, supportive folks who care deeply about what they do.
• In-Person onboarding - We want you to thrive from day 1 with your fellow new ‘Grafanistas’ to learn all about what we do and how we do it.
• Balance is Key - We operate a global annual leave policy of 30 days per annum. 3 days of your annual leave entitlement are reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days to allow the team to really disconnect. *We will comply with local legislation where applicable.