Senior Backend Engineer (Databases, Analytics)

Grafana; Canada; Remote; CAD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

30 days vacation

Healthcare coverage

Pension contributions

Learning and development stipend

Remote-friendly work arrangement

Headspace mindfulness subscription

Employee assistance program

Parental leave

Job summary

Grafana is seeking a Senior Software (Database) Engineer to help build the underlying storage system for our data platform. You will own parts of the database including ingestion, query planning, distributed execution, and storage formats, with focus on multi-tenant SaaS architecture across cloud providers.

You’ll work on observing, metrics, and reliability, partner with product and infra teams, and help evolve from prototype to production-grade systems while staying aligned with real user

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing and building production-grade database systems.
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, data storage formats, and query engines.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures across AWS/GCP/Azure.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership over and build database components including ingestion, query planning, and storage formats.
• Design and implement multi-tenant SaaS foundations with tenant isolation and usage tracking.
• Develop APIs for fast data retrieval for AI agents and internal tools.
• Instrument services with metrics, logs, and alerts to improve reliability.

Skills

Golang

C++

Rust

Distributed systems

Observability

AI technologies

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Data warehouses

Job description

• 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
• This is an early-stage role on a high-autonomy team, so you should be comfortable working through ambiguity, making pragmatic architectural decisions, and building systems that can evolve from internal dogfooding to production-grade SaaS
• 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: Partner with the team to make practical tradeoffs between fast experimentation and long-term reliability, especially as the project moves from prototype to production
• Operate what you build: Instrument database services with metrics, logs, traces, alerts, and dashboards. Use observability tools to understand system behavior and improve reliability
• Contribute to technical direction: Help shape the architecture, service boundaries, storage choices, API contracts, deployment patterns, and engineering practices for a new product area
• Effective communication: You’ll be working in a highly dynamic and collaborative environment, so we need someone who can communicate effectively and contribute across teams
• Ownership and impact: Take full ownership of the database solutions you develop, ensuring they are not only innovative but also scalable, maintainable, and aligned with real user workflows

Benefits

• Vacation: Balance is key. Our team enjoys 30 days of paid vacation each year on top of national holidays, parental leave, and sick leave. We also take a breather on a number of Grafana Shutdown Days each year
• Healthcare: We’re proud to provide health coverage or stipends for our colleagues in the US, UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Singapore, and India
• Retirement planning: There’s no time like the present to start saving for your future. We make employer contributions into the pension pots of our team members in the US, UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany
• Professional development: On top of a $1,500 annual learning and development stipend, Grafanistas have thousands of on-demand courses at their fingertips to help them grow professionally. Want to attend a conference or training? Go ahead. Just pass on what you learned
• Work location: Vast majority of our roles are fully remote, focused on hiring the best talent and allowing you to perform from the comfort of your home. If you fancy a change of scene, we’ll also reimburse you up to $175 a month for a personal co-working space
• Choice of tech: There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the tech required to do your job. Choose the laptop and accessories you need when you join us, and we’ll refresh them every three years
• Mindfulness: When you join the team, you can sign up for a complimentary subscription to Headspace to take advantage of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Our wellbeing resource group also organize sessions run by fellow Grafanistas or external trainers
• Global Employee Assistance Program: We offer all team members a 100% confidential support service with 24/7 365 access to professionally qualified counsellors and specialists
• Paid parental leave: Grafana offers paid parental leave to all eligible new parents. This offers Grafanistas time to bond with and care for their children in the first year after birth or adoption

Proven initiative: You take ownership and drive projects forward, pushing boundaries to find the most impactful solutions. You can deal with ambiguity and are able to define scope where things are loosely definedQuick iteration and experimentation: You’re comfortable releasing prototypes, collecting feedback, and iterating with a pragmatic mindsetExperience using observability tools to understand and troubleshoot system behaviorExperience with distributed systems, catalogs and table formats, query enginesExposure to working in cloud-native environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure)Collaborative attitude: You communicate effectively with your peers. You’re open to feedback, and you bring a solutions-oriented mindset to the tableMastery of a programming language like golang, C++, or RustStrong engineering skills: Solid experience building production-grade, user-facing software systems. You’re a self-starter, capable of tackling complex engineering problems and making design decisions with minimal supervisionAI experience with a practical mindset: You’re familiar with AI technologies and frameworks, and you focus on delivering high-quality solutions that work in the real world, not just in theoryProven track record of delivering software that made it into production and is actively used by usersExperience building data warehouses and/or data lakesExperience building distributed query enginesExperience building tools for data engineering