Staff Backend Engineer - Databases Tempo | Canada | Remote

ABOUT THE ROLE We are seeking a highly skilled Staff Engineer to lead technical direction on the hardest problems in Tempo, the open-source distributed tracing backend behind Grafana Cloud Traces and Grafana Enterprise Traces (GET). As a key member of our team, you will drive innovation, set technical direction, and raise the bar across the team. WHAT YOU'LL DO As a Staff Engineer on Tempo, you will be responsible for leading multi-quarter technical initiatives, owning the architecture of core Tempo components, designing APIs for humans and agents, and driving operational excellence. Your key responsibilities will include: - Leading multi-quarter technical initiatives from problem framing through rollout - Owning the architecture of core Tempo components: ingestion, storage, query, and metrics generation - Designing APIs for humans and agents to shape the next generation of Tempo’s interfaces - Driving operational excellence by owning outcomes against concrete SLOs and pushing the team toward Zero Ops through automation - Partnering with Product and sibling teams to understand how Tempo gets consumed and to ship what unblocks them - Mentoring engineers through code review, design feedback, pairing on hard problems, and writing that leaves the team smarter than you found it - Participating in on-call for the services you help build, and being a force multiplier in incident response and post-incident learning - Contributing to open source by engaging the community, reviewing external contributions, and helping steer the project in the open WHAT YOU'LL NEED To be successful in this role, you will need: - 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with a strong track record of leading technical initiatives and mentoring engineers - Expertise in distributed tracing, observability, and related technologies - Strong understanding of software architecture, design patterns, and scalability principles - Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams - Experience with open-source software development and community engagement WHY REMOTE Grafana Labs is a 100% remote company with 1,600+ team members across 40+ countries. As a remote team member, you will have the flexibility to work from anywhere and will be part of a global, collaborative culture. BENEFITS - Competitive salary and benefits package - Opportunity to work on a high-impact project with a strong focus on innovation and technical excellence - Collaborative and dynamic work environment with a strong focus on developer productivity and AI-assisted development - Professional development opportunities, including access to frontier models and company-funded usage budget for AI coding assistants - Flexible work arrangements, including remote work options - Comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plan, and paid time off.