Sr. Observability Systems Engineer

Backblaze; United States; Remote; USD 178,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Backblaze is seeking a senior observability-focused individual contributor to set the technical direction for how we detect, correlate, and respond to infrastructure incidents across our data centers. You will mentor engineers and influence architecture as the platform matures, with a focus on AI-driven automation.

You will own metrics, logging, and tracing, expand dashboards, and guide cross-functional teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in a systems engineering, SRE, DevOps, or observability-focused role with leadership.
• Hands-on experience with Prometheus/VictoriaMetrics at scale, including PromQL and Alertmanager.
• Experience designing and operating log aggregation pipelines (Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Logstash, Filebeat).
• Knowledge of distributed tracing (Jaeger/OpenTelemetry).
• Proficiency in Python and/or Go for automation and tooling.
• Experience with Kubernetes, including deployment, pod networking, and storage.
• Infrastructure-as-code tooling and configuration management experience.
• Strong Linux knowledge (Debian/Ubuntu).
• Demonstrated mentoring and raising the technical bar on teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication across engineering, SRE, security, and leadership.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for observability standards, including instrumentation, alerting, and dashboards.
• Mentor Observability team; advise SRE, Storage and Network Eng on observability.
• Lead design reviews for observability work and participate in cross-functional architecture decisions.
• Evaluate build-vs-buy for observability and AIOps tooling, with data sovereignty considerations.
• Produce and maintain design docs, runbooks, and ADRs for operability and extensibility.

Skills

Observability leadership

Prometheus/VictoriaMetrics

Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

Jaeger/OpenTelemetry

Python/Go automation

Kubernetes

Infrastructure as code

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Mentoring engineers

Communication skills

Tools

Grafana

OpenSearch/Elasticsearch

Logstash

Filebeat

VictoriaMetrics

Jaeger

OpenTelemetry

Job description

Location: United States

Role Overview

This is a senior individual contributor role with significant architectural ownership. You will set the technical direction for how Backblaze detects, correlates, and responds to infrastructure incidents across our data centers, and you will mentor other engineers on the team as that platform matures. If you have a passion for making complex distributed systems visible, you are comfortable making architecture decisions that will outlive your tenure, and you are excited about applying AI and agentic automation to infrastructure operations, this role was built for you..

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Set technical direction and standards for observability across the organization, including instrumentation conventions, alerting philosophy, and dashboard design patterns.
• Mentor engineers on the Observability team and act as a technical resource for SRE, Storage Engineering, and Network Engineering on observability practice.
• Lead design reviews for observability work and represent the team in cross-functional architecture discussions.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions for observability and AIOps tooling, including data sovereignty and compliance considerations.
• Produce and maintain design documentation, runbooks, and architectural decision records that make the platform operable and extensible by future contributors.

Observability Platform

• Own and evolve our metrics pipeline, including VictoriaMetrics, Prometheus, and the Consul-based service discovery layer that keeps scrape targets current as infrastructure scales.
• Own and expand our logging stack (OpenSearch, Logstash, and Filebeat) across all Backblaze data centers.
• Architect and expand distributed tracing with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry, extending coverage beyond the current application instrumentation to new services.
• Define and maintain Grafana dashboard standards for infrastructure, storage, and application performance visibility.
• Drive expansion of internal application telemetry in partnership with application teams to improve visibility.
• Define capacity and retention strategy for the telemetry stack as the fleet grows.

Infrastructure & Automation

• Own infrastructure-as-code for observability stack deployments across multiple Kubernetes clusters.
• Write and review automated playbooks for configuration management and automation across Debian-based bare metal servers.
• Partner with the SRE team on Consul-based service discovery for VictoriaMetrics scrape target automation.
• Lead Ceph storage observability, including OSD health, performance metrics, and integration with alerting.
• Collaborate with the Network Engineering team on BGP, routing, and network-level observability.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years in a systems engineering, SRE, DevOps, or observability-focused role, including demonstrated technical leadership on a platform or infrastructure team.
• Deep hands-on experience with Prometheus, VictoriaMetrics, or equivalent metrics platforms, including PromQL, Alertmanager, and operating these systems at scale.
• Experience designing and operating log aggregation pipelines such as Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Logstash, Filebeat, or similar.
• Working knowledge of distributed tracing (Jaeger, OpenTelemetry, or equivalent), including instrumentation strategy, not just operation.
• Proficiency in Python and/or Go for automation and tooling.
• Experience with Kubernetes, including deploying workloads and understanding pod networking and storage.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tooling and configuration management.
• Strong understanding of Linux internals, with Debian/Ubuntu preferred.
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and raising the technical bar on a team.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. You'll work across engineering, SRE, security, and leadership, and you'll be expected to write design documents that drive decisions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading the evaluation or deployment of AIOps tooling, including alert correlation, deduplication, or automated root cause analysis.
• Experience building, deploying, or operating AI agents or agentic AI systems. This is a strong differentiator.
• Familiarity with LLM APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI) or self-hosted LLM inference in an infrastructure context.
• Familiarity with Ceph storage, including OSD management, pool configuration, and CRUSH maps.
• Experience with incident management platforms.
• Familiarity with BGP, network observability, or working in multi-DC environments.
• Experience with secrets management in production environments.
• Experience operating in a regulated or compliance-driven environment.
• Prior experience in a storage-focused company or hyperscale infrastructure environment.

What You'll Work On

• A telemetry stack spanning several data centers with exabytes of storage under observation.
• Real infrastructure at scale: Kubernetes, Ceph, Vitess, KVM, and a custom storage platform serving hundreds of thousands of customers.
• A collaborative team that values engineering excellence, transparency, and operational rigor.

Pay Transparency

To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials.

The expected salary range for this role is $178,000 - $200,000 plus 10% target annual bonus and RSUs.

At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.