Senior Software Engineer - OpenTelemetry

About

Grafana Labs is a remote-first, open-source powerhouse with over 20M users of Grafana globally. Grafana Labs supports observability strategies with the Grafana LGTM Stack, available as Grafana Cloud or Grafana Enterprise Stack. The company values an open-source legacy, global collaborative culture, and meaningful work.

Position

Senior Software Engineer - OpenTelemetry (Remote, US or Canada)

What You’ll Be Doing

• Contribute to OpenTelemetry components and related open source projects.
• Define and execute Grafana Labs’ technical strategy for OpenTelemetry.
• Collaborate with upstream maintainers, contributors, and users in open source communities.
• Serve as an OpenTelemetry expert internally and externally, promoting best practices.
• Build clean, robust, performant software.
• Partner with Product, Support, GTM, and engineering teams to align customer needs with technical direction.
• Mentor engineers through design and code reviews and technical guidance.
• Write documentation, examples, blog posts, and other technical materials.

What Makes You a Great Fit

• Strong experience with at least one systems or backend programming language; Golang, Rust, or Java preferred.
• Experience with C, C++, or similar languages is also relevant.
• Experience or strong desire to contribute to open source communities.
• Experience with observability tools like Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry.
• Ability to write reliable, maintainable, and understandable software.
• Comfortable owning ambiguous technical problems from discovery to delivery.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, or systems engineering.
• Clear communication skills, especially in remote and asynchronous environments.

Bonus Points For

• Existing involvement in OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, or observability ecosystem.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining open source projects.
• Experience setting technical direction.
• Experience with microservices, telemetry pipelines, distributed tracing, metrics, logs, or production debugging.
• Experience operating production services and improving reliability.
• Experience creating technical content such as documentation or tutorials.

Compensation & Rewards

• Base compensation range in the US: USD 154,000 - USD 193,000.
• Benefits include equity, bonus (if applicable), and 30 days annual leave.
• In-person onboarding to integrate new employees.

Why You’ll Thrive at Grafana Labs

• 100% Remote, global culture.
• Scaling organization with meaningful work.
• Transparent communication and open decision-making.
• Innovation-driven with autonomy.
• Open source roots and empowered teams.
• Career growth pathways and approachable leadership.
• Passionate and supportive team.
• Global annual leave policy with reserved shutdown days.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Grafana Labs recruits, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, disability, age, veteran status, and other characteristics. The company values equality and diversity.

Additional Information

Grafana Labs may use AI tools in recruitment to assist in matching CVs to job postings, with manual review by recruitment team.