# Senior Software Engineer - k6 Core

**Company:** [Grafana Labs](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/grafana-labs)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $154k – $185k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Go, Concurrency, parallelism, http, gRPC, WebSockets, Networking, Open Source, Distributed Systems, JavaScript, TypeScript, Docker, AWS, Microservices, Grafana
**Posted:** 2026-08-05

> Build and maintain the Go-based k6 performance-testing platform and related distributed cloud services. The role suits an experienced engineer who can independently solve complex systems problems and deliver reliable production software.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

- Build and maintain Grafana k6, an open-source performance testing tool written in Go.
- Develop features and improvements across the k6 codebase from idea through implementation and delivery.
- Work on scoped, under-specified problems by understanding context, evaluating trade-offs, and selecting pragmatic technical approaches.
- Collaborate with engineers on design, implementation, and code reviews.
- Deliver production-quality code, maintain existing functionality, and improve system reliability and maintainability.
- Contribute to k6 cloud services supporting distributed test execution across data centers.
- Consider performance, correctness, failure modes, architecture, releases, user-facing behavior, and open-source project health.
- Work asynchronously, documenting decisions in pull requests and concise design notes.

## Requirements

- Strong experience building production software in Go, or another language with strong support for concurrency and parallelism.
- Experience working on larger or long-lived codebases.
- Ability to work independently on scoped problems and deliver them to completion.
- Clear technical communication skills, especially in code reviews and design discussions.
- Understanding of internet protocols including HTTP, gRPC, and WebSockets.
- Familiarity with lower-level networking concepts.
- Experience with modern development practices, including testing, code review, and iterative development.

## Nice-to-Haves

- Contributions to or maintenance of open-source projects.
- Experience using k6 in production or contributing to the k6 project or ecosystem.
- Experience with performance, reliability, or network testing and optimization.
- Experience with distributed systems or cloud-based services.
- JavaScript and/or TypeScript experience.
- Experience building backend systems for web or mobile applications.
- Familiarity with Docker, AWS, microservices architectures, and observability tools such as Grafana or APM systems.

## Compensation and Benefits

- United States base compensation range: **$154445–$185334**.
- Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are included with all roles.
- 100% remote work environment.
- Career growth opportunities.
- Global annual leave policy of 30 days per year, including 3 Grafana Shutdown Days.
- In-person onboarding.

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