Senior Backend Engineer - Databases, Tempo

at  Grafana Labs

WHAT WE DO

We are the developers of Tempo, an open source distributed tracing backend that is user-friendly, scalable, and a key component of Grafana Enterprise Traces (GET). Tempo allows users to easily search for traces, create metrics from spans, and connect tracing data with logs and metrics. Our team, focused on back-end development, collaborates closely with customers and the Grafana Cloud teams to provide Tempo for on-premises use and at scale in the cloud.

In our expansive domain, some of the projects we have undertaken include:

• Creating and operating distributed systems to efficiently handle tracing ingestion and queries
• Developing TraceQL, a query language specifically designed for selecting traces in Tempo, inspired by PromQL and LogQL
• Building and improving the metrics-generator, a Tempo component that generates metrics from ingested traces

Tempo is relied upon by prominent global organizations for monitoring critical applications and infrastructure. We value creativity and diverse perspectives, encouraging each team member to contribute ideas that enhance our product as a reliable tool.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Solid experience with at least one programming language. We use Go, but if you have familiarity with Python, C, C++, Rust or similar then that translates well.
• Some experience with delivering projects from gathering requirements, brainstorming ideas all the way to shipping a product to the customer’s hands in a self-driven way.
• Some experience with developing software that runs in the Cloud or some experience with systems engineering.
• Experience writing clean, robust, and performant software that is easily maintained by others.

NICE TO HAVES:

• Experience working with Kubernetes
• Been a user of Grafana and Prometheus in operational roles (including on-call for your team at a previous employer or just using these tools on hobby/homelab projects)
• Exposure to microservices architecture and distributed systems, or a desire to learn
• Familiarity with being on-call and performing operations/SRE tasks or with the concept of infrastructure as code

In Sweden, the Base compensation range for this role is SEK 738,518 - SEK 923,148. Actual compensation may vary based on level, experience, and skillset as assessed in the interview process. Benefits include equity, bonus (if applicable) and other benefits listed here.

• Compensation ranges are country-specific. If you are applying for this role from a different location than listed above, your recruiter will discuss your specific market’s defined pay range & benefits at the beginning of the process.

About Grafana Labs: There are more than 20M users of Grafana, the open source visualization tool, around the globe, monitoring everything from beehives to climate change in the Alps. The instantly recognizable dashboards have been spotted everywhere from a NASA launch and Minecraft HQ to Wimbledon and the Tour de France. Grafana Labs also helps more than 3,000 companies - including Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase, and eBay - manage their observability strategies with the Grafana LGTM Stack, which can be run fully managed with Grafana Cloud or self-managed with the Grafana Enterprise Stack, both featuring scalable metrics (Grafana Mimir), logs (Grafana Loki), and traces (Grafana Tempo).
Benefits: For more information about the perks and benefits of working at Grafana, please check out our careers page.
Equal Opportunity Employer: At Grafana Labs we’re building a company where a diverse mix of talented people want to come, stay, and do their best work. We know that our company runs on the hard work and the dedication of our passionate and creative employees. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways.
We will recruit, train, compensate and promote regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, disability, age, veteran status, and all the other fascinating characteristics that make us different and unique. We believe that equality and diversity builds a strong organization and we’re working hard to make sure that’s the foundation of our organization as we grow.
For information about how your personal data is used once you’ve applied to a job, check out our privacy policy.

WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING?

• Collaborate with your team to deliver new features, analyze outcomes, and make improvements
• Lead projects from concept to implementation, including ongoing customer support
• Design, build, operate, and maintain essential systems, ensuring reliability, performance, and availability
• Take an active role in influencing our roadmap and your own career objectives
• Participate in on-call rotations and take responsibility for the services you oversee
• Support and mentor team members, engage in design conversations, and work closely with colleagues
• Expand your skillset by deepening your knowledge of our cloud products, understanding our customers, and learning about our codebase
  We are a remote-first organization and meet regularly using video calls and communicate asynchronously through documents. An independent attitude and good communication skills are a must.

In Sweden, the Base compensation range for this role is SEK 738,518 - SEK 923,148. Actual compensation may vary based on level, experience, and skillset as assessed in the interview process. Benefits include equity, bonus (if applicable) and other benefits listed here.

• Compensation ranges are country-specific. If you are applying for this role from a different location than listed above, your recruiter will discuss your specific market’s defined pay range & benefits at the beginning of the process