Senior Software Engineer - Observability Real User Monitoring (RUM)

Role Description

Grafana Observability builds end-to-end observability that spans application, infrastructure, database, browser, and mobile. Our Real User Monitoring (RUM) initiative focuses on capturing, storing, and querying high-volume user interaction data from browsers and mobile devices, enabling teams to understand real-world user experiences at scale.

We’re building systems that ingest and process massive amounts of telemetry—sessions, events, traces, and logs—and make them explorable in real time. This requires deep expertise in high-performance backend systems, columnar storage, and intuitive frontend experiences.

Our solutions are tightly integrated with OpenTelemetry and Grafana Cloud. We care deeply about performance, cost-efficiency, and developer experience across the entire stack—from instrumentation to query layer to visualization.

We value open standards, great developer experience, and doing the hard engineering needed to ship reliable software at scale. You may not meet every requirement below. If this role excites you, please raise your hand.

What you’ll be doing

• Build and evolve fullstack features for RUM, spanning backend services, APIs, storage systems, and frontend user experiences.
• Design and implement systems that ingest, store, and query high-cardinality, high-volume telemetry data using columnar/analytical databases.
• Develop performant query layers and APIs that power real-time exploration of user sessions, traces, and events.
• Contribute to frontend applications that visualize RUM data, enabling users to debug performance issues and understand user behavior.
• Work on data modeling, indexing strategies, and query optimization to ensure low-latency, cost-efficient analytics at scale.
• Collaborate closely with SDK engineers (browser and mobile) to ensure high-quality data ingestion and schema evolution.
• Own projects end-to-end: from design and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• Break down complex, ambiguous problems into incremental deliverables and iterate quickly based on feedback.
• Ensure quality through testing, observability of your own systems, documentation, and smooth upgrade paths.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with backend, frontend, product, and solutions engineering to deliver cohesive observability workflows.
• Support teammates, participate in technical design discussions and help shape the RUM roadmap.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of fullstack engineering experience with strong backend fundamentals.
• Backend experience (Go is preferred) and frontend experience, we use TypeScript and React.
• Experience building or operating distributed systems in production (e.g., Kafka, WarpStream, ClickHouse, Cassandra, Postgres).
• Familiarity with cloud-native systems (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Experience working with high-throughput, high-cardinality data (logs, metrics, traces, events).
• Strong understanding of data modeling, query optimization, and performance tradeoffs.
• Experience designing and building APIs and distributed services.
• Experience building data-heavy UIs (dashboards, query tools, debugging interfaces).
• Familiarity with observability concepts (traces, logs, metrics) and/or OpenTelemetry.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work in a remote, distributed team.
• Pragmatic, self-driven, and comfortable navigating ambiguity.
• Customer-focused mindset with a passion for developer experience.

Bonus / nice-to-have

• Experience with browser or mobile instrumentation (RUM SDKs, telemetry collection).
• Mobile development experience (iOS or Android) or familiarity with mobile performance and telemetry.
• Contributions to OpenTelemetry or other observability OSS.
• Experience building developer-facing platforms or observability products.
• Familiarity with session replay, sampling strategies, or user behavior analytics systems.

Compensation

In the United States, the compensation range for this role is $154,445 - $185,334 USD. Actual compensation may vary based on level, experience, and skillset as assessed throughout the interview process. All of our roles include Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), giving every team member ownership in Grafana Labs' success. We believe in shared outcomes—RSUs help us stay aligned and invested as we scale globally.

Benefits

• 100% Remote, Global Culture - As a remote-only company, we bring together talent from around the world, united by a culture of collaboration and shared purpose.
• Scaling Organization - Tackle meaningful work in a high-growth, ever-evolving environment.
• Transparent Communication - Expect open decision-making and regular company-wide updates.
• Innovation-Driven - Autonomy and support to ship great work and try new things.
• Open Source Roots - Built on community-driven values that shape how we work.
• Empowered Teams - High trust, low ego culture that values outcomes over optics.
• Career Growth Pathways - Defined opportunities to grow and develop your career.
• Approachable Leadership - Transparent execs who are involved, visible, and human.
• Passionate People - Join a team of smart, supportive folks who care deeply about what they do.
• In-Person onboarding - We want you to thrive from day 1 with your fellow new ‘Grafanistas’ to learn all about what we do and how we do it.
• Balance is Key - We operate a global annual leave policy of 30 days per annum. 3 days of your annual leave entitlement are reserved for Grafana Shutdown Days to allow the team to really disconnect.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Grafana Labs is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from everyone regardless of race, colour, nationality, origin, caste, sex, gender reassignment identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, religion or belief, disability, veteran status, genetic information, pregnancy, maternity, marital, family or carer status, or any other characteristic which is protected by local law. We believe that equality and diversity build a strong organisation, and we work hard to ensure that is the foundation of our organisation as we grow.