Senior Backend Engineer (Databases, Analytics)
Senior backend engineer at Grafana building the storage/database layer (OLAP + OLTP) of a new general-purpose data platform: ingestion, distributed query execution, storage formats, and a multi-tenant SaaS foundation with AI-agent-facing retrieval APIs. Requires mastery of Go, C++, or Rust and distributed-systems experience.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Winnipeg, Canada
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Backend
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Mastery of a programming language like Go, C++, or Rust
- Solid experience building production-grade, user-facing software systems
- Proven track record of delivering software that made it into production and is actively used
- Experience with distributed systems, catalogs and table formats, query engines
- Experience using observability tools to understand and troubleshoot system behavior
- Exposure to cloud-native environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure)
- Familiarity with AI technologies and frameworks with a practical, real-world mindset
- Proven initiative: takes ownership, drives projects forward, handles ambiguity and loosely defined scope
- Comfortable releasing prototypes, collecting feedback, and iterating quickly
- Collaborative attitude and effective communication across teams
Nice to have
- Experience building data warehouses and/or data lakes
- Experience building distributed query engines
- Experience building tools for data engineering
Full 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