[Hiring] Staff Engineer @LaunchDarkly

Role Description

LaunchDarkly is looking for an experienced Staff Engineer to play a key role in shaping the future of software delivery at LaunchDarkly at the intersection of Releases and Observability on the Guardian team. Our mission is to redefine how software is released:

• Automating release processes
• Measuring the real-time impact of feature rollouts
• Simplifying debugging when things go wrong

We are solving critical challenges in modern software delivery:

• Reducing the time it takes to detect regressions
• Automating responses to minimize risk
• Eliminating manual effort

If you’re interested in building the systems that help software teams ship safely at scale, we’d love to work with you.

Responsibilities

• Prototyping / 0-to-1 innovation: Lead the exploration and prototyping of new product concepts at the intersection of feature flags and observability.
• Observability domain expertise and thought leadership: Bring deep domain expertise in observability systems to reimagine how engineering teams understand the real-time impact of software changes.
• Collaborate seamlessly with cross-functional partners: Work with product, design, data science, and engineering to architect and advance our observability products.
• Stay at the forefront of development trends: Suggest and implement forward-thinking improvements in tools, processes, and methodologies.
• Proactively identify opportunities for product and user experience improvements: Leverage data insights and feedback to propose innovative solutions.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping production-quality full-stack features.
• Experience with observability systems, statistical analysis pipelines, and event-based metrics infrastructure.
• Strong architectural understanding of data platforms, backend services, and cloud-native infrastructure.
• Experience leading 0-to-1 product development, taking ambiguous problem spaces from exploration through proof of concept to validated direction.
• Deep familiarity with the observability ecosystem (APM, distributed tracing, OpenTelemetry, error tracking).
• Demonstrated ability to work autonomously with minimal direction.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills.

Requirements

• Comfortable defining what to build, not just how to build it.

Benefits

• Target pay ranges based on Geographic Zones for Level 5:
• Zone 1: San Francisco/Bay Area or NYC Metropolitan Area, Boston, Seattle - $214,800 - $295,350
• Zone 2: Irvine, LA, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago - $193,400 - $265,870
• Zone 3: All other US locations - $182,600 - $251,020
• Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.
• Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), health, vision, and dental insurance, and mental health benefits in addition to salary.