Grafana & Elastic Architect

Overview

The Grafana and Elastic Architect will maintain and optimize the observability platform, ensure cost-effective operations, define guardrails, and promote best practices. This role will oversee the platforms BAU support, manage vendors and partners, and collaborate closely with application owners to onboard applications. The Architect will also lead the deployment of AI Ops and other advanced features within Grafana and Elastic while working with other observability, ITSM, and platform architects. This position includes people management responsibilities and involves leading a team to achieve operational excellence.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

1. Platform Ownership & Cost Optimization

2. Maintain and enhance the Grafana and Elastic platforms to ensure high availability and performance.

3. Implement cost control mechanisms to optimize resource utilization across Observability platforms.

4. Establish platform guardrails, best practices, and governance models.

5. BAU Support & Vendor/Partner Management

6. Manage day-to-day operations, troubleshooting, and platform improvements.

7. Engage and manage third-party vendors and partners to ensure SLA adherence and platform reliability.

8. Work closely with procurement and finance teams to manage vendor contracts and renewals.

9. Application Onboarding & Collaboration

10. Partner with application owners and engineering teams to onboard applications onto the Observability platform.

11. Define standardized onboarding frameworks and processes for application teams.

12. Ensure seamless integration with existing observability solutions like AppDynamics, ServiceNow ITOM, and other monitoring tools.

13. AI Ops & Advanced Features Implementation

14. Deploy AI Ops capabilities within Grafana and Elastic to enhance proactive monitoring and anomaly detection.

15. Implement automation and intelligent alerting to reduce MTTR and operational overhead.

16. Stay updated with industry trends and recommend innovative AI-driven observability enhancements.

17. Cross-Functional Collaboration

18. Work closely with architects of AppDynamics, ServiceNow, and other Observability platforms to ensure an integrated monitoring strategy.

19. Align with ITSM, DevOps, and Cloud teams to create a holistic observability roadmap.

20. Lead knowledge-sharing sessions and create technical documentation for the team.

21. People & Team Management

22. Lead and managed a team responsible for Grafana and Elastic observability operations.

23. Provide mentorship, coaching, and career development opportunities for team members.
24. Define team goals, monitor performance, and drive continuous improvement in Observability practices.
25. Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and accountability within the team.

Qualifications

Technical Expertise

• 12+ years of experience in IT Operations, Observability, or related fields.
• Strong expertise in Grafana and Elastic Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).
• Experience in implementing AI Ops, machine learning, or automation within observability platforms.
• Proficiency in scripting and automation (Python, Ansible, Terraform) for Observability workloads.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-based Observability solutions, particularly in Azure environments.
• Familiarity with additional monitoring tools like AppDynamics, ServiceNow ITOM, SevOne, and ThousandEyes.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Experience in managing vendors, contracts, and external partnerships.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to work cross-functionally.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to lead and mentor junior engineers in Observability best practices.