Backend Engineer at Grafana Labs: what they ask

Open-source observability (Grafana, Loki, Tempo, Mimir). Backend mostly Go.

From Grafana Labs’ official blog on the backend hiring process. Add yours to keep it fresh.

The process

1. Hiring Manager (~45m): experience, technical ability, fit. Focus on recently shipped features, technologies used, decisions, outcomes.
2. Coding exercise (~60m, 2 engineers): the code is NOT the pass criterion — reasoning, communication and collaboration are.
3. NALSD — Non-Abstract Large System Design (~60m, 2 engineers): "reason upwards", from a vague description to a concrete design with numbers.
4. Reflection & offer: mutual assessment of fit and culture, more chats with the team.

What they ask

• Hiring manager: walk through a recent feature — technologies, decisions, outcome.
• Collaborative coding: show how you think and communicate, not just the solution.
• NALSD: size a system (capacity, QPS, storage) starting from vague requirements.

How they behave

"Interviewing ability correlates weakly with on-the-job effectiveness" — they adjust expectations accordingly. Two engineers on the technical session. They assess the reasoning process, not the correctness of the solution. Key value: bias-to-action.

How to prepare

• Research the hiring manager on LinkedIn before the interview.
• Prepare 1-2 recent features to talk through (decisions, tradeoffs, outcome).
• NALSD: practice estimating (capacity/QPS/storage) from vague requirements — the reasoning matters, not subject-matter expertise. For coding: "turn up as you are", don’t over-prepare.