Senior Software Engineer - Observability Real User Monitoring (RUM) | US | Remote

Grafana Labs, the company behind the open observability cloud, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join their Observability team. The role focuses on building end-to-end observability solutions that capture and analyze user interaction data, requiring expertise in backend systems and data processing.

Responsibilities:

• 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

Requirements:

• 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
• 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