Senior Software Engineer (Session Replay)

Grafana; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

30 days paid vacation

Health coverage or stipends in US/UK/…

Retirement contributions

$1,500 annual learning stipend

Remote-first with co-working space up

Headspace mindfulness subscription

Global Employee Assistance Program

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Grafana is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Session Replay squad to own end-to-end technical direction across frontend, backend, and data systems in a remote-first environment. You will evolve backend architecture with columnar storage, design ingestion pipelines and query patterns, and mentor other engineers while collaborating with product teams to deliver cohesive experiences.

You’ll engage with customers, balance performance and cost constraints, and push for robust data privacy

Qualifications

• Experience with columnar/analytical databases.
• Experience building debugging or developer-focused tools.
• Experience with observability tools (Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Sentry, etc.).
• Familiarity with privacy, security, and access control in data-heavy systems.
• Experience working on performance-sensitive systems (large datasets, real-time queries, session data).

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end technical direction for Session Replay across frontend, backend, and data systems.
• Evolve backend architecture with columnar/analytical data storage for large-scale session data.
• Define data models, ingestion pipelines, and query patterns.
• Lead design of investigation workflows linking replay with logs, metrics, traces and other telemetry.
• Mentor engineers and drive architectural standards; collaborate with cross-Grafana teams.
• Engage with customers to gather feedback and assist adoption of Session Replay.

Skills

Go

TypeScript

React

Columnar/Analytical databases

Observability tools

Privacy & security

Data-intensive systems

Performance-sensitive systems

Tools

MySQL

S3/GCS/Azure Blob

Grafana ecosystem

Job description

• The Session Replay squad is building a new Grafana Cloud product that helps our customers to understand what users actually experienced when something goes wrong
• Session Replay connects frontend signals (errors, performance, synthetic checks) to concrete session-level evidence, enabling faster and more confident investigation of production issues
• This team works at the intersection of:
• Frontend observability,
• Backend data processing and storage at scale,
• Debugging workflows across products,
• Privacy and access control,
• Performance and cost constraints at scale
• Session Replay is still early, which means you’ll help shape both what we build and how it fits into Grafana Cloud
• A key part of our next phase is evolving the backend architecture of capturing sessions, including a migration toward columnar/analytical solution as a primary storage and query engine for high-volume session data
• Our stack is Golang, Typescript and React, but we build tools for people using many other stacks
• As a Senior Software Engineer, you will operate as a technical leader and systems thinker, driving both product direction and architectural evolution, specifically, you will:
• 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
• Engage directly with customers - joining calls, gathering structured feedback, and helping customers instrument and adopt Session Replay successfully
• Improve engineering standards, patterns, and operational practices within the team
• Mentor engineers and help grow technical leadership within the team
• Technologies you’ll work with:
• 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.)
• We invest heavily in developer productivity
• You can use modern AI coding assistants as part of your daily workflow (your choice of tools, within security guidelines), backed by a company-funded usage budget so you can iterate quickly without unnecessary friction
• We encourage pragmatic AI-assisted development: faster prototyping, test generation, refactors, documentation, and incident follow-ups—always with strong code review and quality standards
• You’ll also have access to the latest frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google

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

We are looking for Senior Software Engineers who are passionate about working with data and providing seamless experiences for our growing team!You are comfortable working in a remote-first company; communication is keyYou use AI tools as a natural part of your engineering workflow - whether for accelerating exploration, code review, or reasoning through design tradeoffs - and you’re thoughtful about where they help and where they dontYou 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 crucialYou 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 & automationAbility to reason about data-intensive systems (ingestion, storage, querying, cost trade-offs)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 EnglishYou 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

• Experience with columnar/analytical databases
• Experience building debugging or developer-focused tools
• Experience with observability tools (Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Sentry, etc.)
• Familiarity with privacy, security, and access control in data-heavy systems
• Experience working on performance-sensitive systems (large datasets, real-time queries, session data)