Staff Backend Engineer - Databases Tempo | US | Remote

Grafana Labs is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead the development and architecture of Tempo, an open-source distributed tracing backend that supports Grafana's observability products. The role involves setting technical direction, driving multi-quarter initiatives, and collaborating across teams to enhance Tempo's platform capabilities.

Location: Remote (US and Canada)

Salary: $174,986 - $209,983 USD (US only)

Responsibilities

• Lead multi-quarter technical initiatives such as trace aggregation APIs, autoscaling, and query engine improvements.
• Own the architecture of core Tempo components: ingestion, storage, query, and metrics generation.
• Design APIs for humans and agents to enable reliable building on Tempo.
• Drive operational excellence with concrete SLOs, automation, and incident management.
• Partner with product and other teams to understand and improve Tempo's integration and usage.
• Mentor engineers through code review, design feedback, and knowledge sharing.
• Participate in on-call duties and incident response.
• Contribute to open source community efforts for Tempo.

Requirements

• Technical leadership experience in complex, multi-quarter initiatives.
• Deep experience building and operating distributed data systems.
• Strong software craftsmanship in writing clean, robust, performant software.
• Proficiency in Go or other systems languages like Rust, C, C++.
• Operational mindset with experience owning production services and reducing toil.
• Customer-focused, pragmatic problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication skills for remote collaboration.

Benefits

• Competitive salary range with RSUs, ownership in Grafana Labs.
• Remote-first, global culture emphasizing collaboration and transparency.
• Opportunities for career growth and development.
• Involvement in open source projects.
• Work-life balance with a global annual leave policy and Grafana Shutdown Days.
• Supportive, innovative, and diverse team environment.