Staff Engineer, Guardian

About the role

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. In a world where agents are delivering code faster and more reliably, releasing safely is no longer optional infrastructure; it's a competitive advantage. The Guardian team is focused on making every release safer, faster, and more reliable. Our mission is to redefine how software is released: automating release processes, measuring the real-time impact of feature rollouts, and simplifying debugging when things go wrong. From automated release pipelines to metrics monitoring, error tracking, and fully automated rollbacks, our work ensures every code change is measured, and the entire release process from rollout to issue mitigation is managed for maximum efficiency and reliability. We are solving critical challenges in modern software delivery: reducing the time it takes to detect regressions, automating responses to minimize risk, and eliminating manual effort. We extensively use the products we build, allowing us to create our own ideal release process while shaping the developer experience for teams across the industry. If you're interested in building the systems that help software teams ship safely at scale, we'd love to work with you.

Requirements

• 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) and an informed perspective on where it's heading.
• Demonstrated ability to work autonomously with minimal direction, comfortable defining what to build, not just how to build it.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and interpersonal skills
• Pay:
• 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 - $182,600 -$ 251,0202**
• LaunchDarkly operates from a place of high trust and transparency; we are happy to state the pay range for our open roles to best align with your needs. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.
• *Within the United States, our geographic pay zones are defined by counties surrounding major metropolitan areas.
• **Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), health, vision, and dental insurance, and mental health benefits in addition to salary.
• About Lau

Benefits

Your Match

How well this role fits your profile.

Company Intel

What employees say

Worked at LaunchDarkly? Share your experience