Software Engineer (Observability)

• This position is needed to help our platform engineering observability team
• Twilio is undergoing a large-scale observability transformation—and you can help shape the foundation
• Observability is a strategic pillar and a key enabler for faster incident response, deeper customer-centric insights, and more cost-effective platform operations
• As a Software Engineer on the Platform Observability team, you’ll play a critical role in re-architecting how telemetry flows and is utilized through Twilio—making it structured, accessible, affordable, and actionable
• Over the next 3 years, Twilio is rebuilding nearly every component of our observability platform, from data collection to real-time analytics
• You will drive core initiatives that shift Twilio from fragmented tooling and wasteful data sprawl to a unified, OpenTelemetry-first observability stack built for scale
• You’ll lead technically and strategically—designing platform components, influencing org-wide architectural decisions, mentoring engineers, and engaging directly with teams across Platform Engineering and R&D
• Lead the end-to-end architecture and delivery of key observability platform components, with a focus on reliability, scalability, and usability
• Drive consistency and quality across all observability signals—logs, metrics, traces, and continuous profiling—building intuitive workflows for engineers
• Serve as a technical advisor and mentor across the platform org, guiding design decisions and aligning cross-team efforts with long-term architectural goals
• Go deep in one or more problem areas (e.g., high-cardinality telemetry, distributed tracing correlation, compute cost insights), while ensuring the platform scales horizontally
• Collaborate with product teams, SREs, and developer experience groups to deeply understand telemetry needs and integrate observability into core engineering workflows
• Design and build developer-friendly tooling and APIs to support incident response, performance analysis, and platform debugging at scale
• Leverage (and optionally contribute to) open-source standards like OpenTelemetry to ensure interoperability and extensibility
• Champion a pragmatic approach to observability—balancing performance, cost, and user value across diverse engineering teams

Benefits

• Build and present a Twilio app to earn your Twilio track jacket and receive $30 per month for e-books for continued learning and education
• Work from home opportunities
• Generous annual time off in all countries
• Comprehensive health programs
• Programs to help our employees plan for their retirement needs
• Generous maternity, paternity, and adoption leaves, as well as family medical care leave
• Variety of snacks, drinks, and catered meals in each of our locations

• Familiarity with high-cardinality data challenges and telemetry correlation techniques
• Proven expertise in building and scaling observability systems (e.g., logging platforms, metrics pipelines, tracing infrastructure, or profiling tools)
• Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, Python, Java)
• Provide architectural guidance and thought leadership across teams, helping to establish clear telemetry standards, efficient usage patterns, and scalable platform abstractions
• Experience designing high-scale telemetry systems (e.g., Prometheus, ClickHouse, OpenTelemetry, Kafka, or equivalent)
• Ability to make forward-looking technical decisions and lead others through ambiguity and chan
• Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code tools
• Lead technical execution for major components of Twilio’s observability overhaul, including our shift to centralized S3-based data lakes, OpenTelemetry instrumentation, and ClickHouse-backed query engines
• Twilio values diverse experiences from all kinds of industries, and we encourage everyone who meets the required qualifications to apply. If your career is just starting or hasn’t followed a traditional path, don’t let that stop you from considering Twilio. We are always looking for people who will bring something new to the table!
• Solid understanding of distributed systems and the challenges of observability in complex, microservice-based environments
• Familiarity with ClickHouse, Grafana Mimir, Athena, or equivalent systems for log and metrics querying
• Contributions to open-source observability tools or communities
• Experience building cost visibility or FinOps tooling for cloud compute and telemetry pipelines