Every day, millions of users rely on Grafana to monitor the health and performance of their critical systems, from software applications to factories and even space shuttles. Our mission is two-fold: to provide a seamless and effortless sign-in experience for all users, and to ensure administrators have complete peace of mind, knowing that every user has secure access to precisely the data and functionality they need
The Identity and Access team at Grafana manages all aspects of authentication and authorization, working across both our open-source and proprietary codebases. The Identity squad, within the team, owns the authentication layer — the protocols and flows that determine how every Grafana user proves who they are. We actively implement cutting-edge authentication protocols such as MCP OAuth (OAuth 2.1), OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and SCIM, rather than relying on off-the-shelf components
We are completely redesigning Grafana’s authentication at the edge — a rare opportunity to shape the technical direction of authentication infrastructure at scale, with a direct impact on millions of users every day
Our code paths sit in the critical hot paths across Grafana’s services, making every millisecond of performance essential. As a Staff Engineer, you will be central to defining how we evolve these systems
As a Staff Engineer on the Identity squad, you will set the technical direction for our authentication systems and lead the most complex initiatives from conception through delivery. You will collaborate closely with engineering leadership, product management, and cross-functional partners to define how Grafana authenticates millions of users every day
Approximately 55% of your time will be dedicated to backend development (Golang), 25% to technical leadership and cross-team collaboration, and 20% to operations and reliability
Define and own the technical architecture for the Identity squad’s authentication systems, including our edge authentication redesign
Lead the design and implementation of large-scale, multi-quarter initiatives in the critical path of user interaction, spanning multiple services and teams
Mentor and develop senior engineers, providing technical guidance, design feedback, and support for their professional growth
Serve as a technical authority for identity protocols at Grafana, driving alignment on how we implement and evolve OAuth, OIDC, SAML, LDAP, and SCIM across the organization
Drive cross-team technical alignment on authentication standards, patterns, and best practices across Grafana’s engineering organization
Represent Grafana Labs at meetups and conferences, and contribute to the broader identity and authentication community
As we are remote-first and our engineering organization is largely remote, we provide guidance and meet regularly using video calls, so an independent attitude and strong communication skills are essential