Staff AI Engineer | Canada | Remote
Job description
Grafana Labs is a remote-first, open-source powerhouse. There are more than 20M users of Grafana, the open source visualization tool, around the globe, monitoring everything from beehives to climate change in the Alps. The instantly recognizable dashboards have been spotted everywhere from a NASA launch and Minecraft HQ to Wimbledon and the Tour de France. Grafana Labs also helps more than 3,000 companies -- including Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase, and eBay -- manage their observability strategies with the Grafana LGTM Stack, which can be run fully managed with Grafana Cloud or self-managed with the Grafana Enterprise Stack, both featuring scalable metrics (Grafana Mimir), logs (Grafana Loki), and traces (Grafana Tempo).
We’re scaling fast and staying true to what makes us different: an open-source legacy, a global collaborative culture, and a passion for meaningful work. Our team thrives in an innovation-driven environment where transparency, autonomy, and trust fuel everything we do.
You may not meet every requirement, and that’s okay. If this role excites you, we’d love you to raise your hand for what could be a truly career-defining opportunity.
This is a remote opportunity and we are looking for candidates from Canada. Residents of Quebec are not eligible for this role.
The Opportunity
Grafana Labs is seeking a Staff Engineer (AI & Automation) to own the AI agent infrastructure and automation platform that powers our Marketing Operations organization. You’ll build multi-agent architectures, LLM integrations, and backend services that connect AI models to internal and third-party data platforms. You’ll ship production systems that teams depend on daily.
This is a high-autonomy role where you own the technical direction. You’ll identify the highest-leverage problems across Marketing, RevOps, and SDR teams, design the solutions, and ship them. You’ll define the technical direction for the automation platform (data models, API contracts, shared libraries, reference architectures) and partner with Data Engineering, GTM Systems, and Field Operations to build scalable, self-service automation that eliminates manual work and drives operational efficiency.
What You'll Be Doing
Agentic Systems & AI Infrastructure
- Own end-to-end development of multi-agent AI systems, from architecture and implementation through testing, deployment, and ongoing operation
- Build modular, composable agentic systems using orchestration frameworks (LangChain, CrewAI, Anthropic MCP, or similar) that operate 24/7 across teams
- Develop reusable agentic skills that agents invoke across interfaces (Slack, dashboards, internal apps, CLIs)
- Implement observability and feedback loops including logging, performance metrics, prompt iteration, model evaluation, and cost management
- Establish governance and compliance standards for AI workflows including access controls, audit trails, PII handling, and human-in-the-loop escalation paths
Systems Integration & Backend Services
- Build MCP servers, APIs, CLIs, and microservices connecting AI models to business systems (BigQuery, Slack, CRMs, email, calendars, analytics tools)
- Architect data flows for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), connecting LLMs to internal knowledge bases, customer data, and real-time business context
- Build serverless or containerized services (GCP Cloud Functions, Cloud Run) that scale with usage and integrate with Grafana's cloud infrastructure
Automation & Workflow Enablement
- Partner with RevOps, Demand Generation, Regional Marketing, and SDR teams to scope high-impact automation problems, identify bottlenecks, and build solutions with measurable business outcomes
- Design and deploy workflows using orchestration tools (n8n, Workato, or custom platforms) with CI/CD, testing, and production reliability standards
- Build systems designed for self-service with documentation, playbooks, and enablement materials that let partner teams operate independently
We invest heavily in developer productivity. You'll have access to AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Gemini CLI, OpenAI Codex, and others of your choice within security guidelines). We encourage pragmatic AI-assisted development paired with strong code review and quality standards.
What Makes You a Great Fit
- 8+ years of software engineering experience with depth in backend development, systems integration, or data/analytics engineering
- 2+ years hands-on experience applying LLMs/AI to production workflows, not just prototypes
- Strong proficiency in Python and JavaScript/Node.js with Git-based workflows, code review practices, and testing discipline
- Hands-on experience with LLM frameworks and patterns including prompt engineering, RAG, function calling/tool use, structured output parsing, and evaluation
- Experience building and operating multi-agent systems at scale including agent decomposition, orchestration patterns (sequential chains, router/dispatcher, parallel fan-out), state management, and production monitoring
- You diagnose business problems before writing code. You think in workflows and outcomes, not just functions.
- Deep familiarity with Google Cloud Platform, BigQuery, and serverless/containerized services (Cloud Functions, Cloud Run)
- Understanding of LLM failure modes and production mitigations including confidence thresholds, fallback logic, human escalation, and cost/latency management
- Proven ability to identify high-leverage problems, push back on low-impact requests, and deliver end-to-end with minimal direction
- Fluent with AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code). You use AI to build AI systems
- Clear technical communicator who can explain complex systems in simple terms to both engineers and business stakeholders
Bonus Points
- Experience with vector databases or retrieval pipelines (Pinecone, Weaviate, ChromaDB, Qdrant, pgvector)
- Familiarity with marketing or sales platforms (Salesforce, Customer.io, HubSpot, Marketo, Outreach)
- Experience with frontend frameworks (React, Slack Block Kit) for building user-facing AI tool interfaces
- Observability tooling for AI systems (LangSmith, Weights & Biases, custom evaluation frameworks)
- Experience with workflow orchestration platforms (n8n, Temporal, Prefect, Airflow)
- Familiarity with Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar standards for connecting AI systems to data sources
- Prior work automating marketing, sales, or customer success workflows in a B2B SaaS environment
- Active in open-source communities. Grafana is built on OSS and we value engineers who share that DNA
In Canada, the base compensation range for this role is CAD 186,368 - CAD 223,642. 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.
*Compensation ranges are country specific. If you are applying for this role from a different location than listed above, your recruiter will discuss your specific market’s defined pay range & benefits at the beginning of the process.
Why You’ll Thrive at Grafana Labs:
- 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. *We will comply with local legislation where applicable.
Equal Opportunity Employer: We will recruit, train, compensate and promote regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, disability, age, veteran status, and all the other fascinating characteristics that make us different and unique. We believe that equality and diversity builds a strong organization and we’re working hard to make sure that’s the foundation of our organization as we grow.
Grafana Labs may utilize AI tools in its recruitment process to assist in matching information provided in CVs to job postings. The recruitment team will continue to review inbound CVs manually to identify alignment with current openings.
#LI-Remote