Senior Systems Engineer, Cloudflare
Cloudflare Tunnel
More information about location
Web performance and security platform
Be an early applicant
Web performance and security platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help build a better Internet that is bold and ambitious.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of experience in backend software development with a focus on building secure and highly available distributed systems
- Strong programming skills in Go, Rust, C++, or a similar systems-level language
- Knowledge of modern Unix/Linux development and runtime environments
- Grasp of networking protocols in Layers 3-7 of the OSI Model and experience with network programming
- Familiarity with microservices and APIs, including RESTful design
- Basic understanding of software security and encryption principles
- Ability to debug and troubleshoot issues in complex distributed systems
- Experience with monitoring and logging tools like Prometheus and Grafana
- Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, demonstrating empathy, teamwork and a sense of ownership
What the job involves
- As a Senior Systems Engineer on the Cloudflare Tunnel team, you will drive the technical vision and architect for future scale, ensuring our product securely connects any machine to the Cloudflare network
- You will be responsible for the strategic design of systems across our high-performance global edge network and microservice clusters, providing cross-functional influence to ensure long-term stability and performance
- In this leadership role, you will guide capacity planning and the development of next-generation features for Cloudflare Tunnel, Mesh and Zero Trust Network
- You will join a team of bright, hard-working, and supportive engineers who are passionate about their craft, and you will be comfortable operating in a fast-paced but sane work environment
- Lead the architecture and implementation of complex software systems that comprise Cloudflare Tunnel, including the cross-platform, open-source client and high-performance edge services
- Participate in all stages of the software development lifecycle, from designing and documenting systems to writing code, automated tests, and monitoring production deployments
- Strategically influence and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, including security, network engineering, SRE, and product management, to design and scale technical solutions
- Review work from your peers throughout all stages of the development lifecycle to ensure high-quality, maintainable code
- Foster a culture of technical excellence through mentorship, proactive code reviews, and establishing engineering standards across the team to ensure high-quality, maintainable code
- Debug issues in complex systems and contribute to the maintenance and improvement of operational health
- Drive the long-term technical roadmap and identify opportunities for system-wide improvements, ensuring our architecture remains resilient as we scale
- Work with a wide range of technologies and programming languages, including Go, Rust, and Typescript, as well as various databases (SQL and No-SQL), Docker, and Kubernetes
Our take
Cloudflare is a multi-service global network that provides web security and infrastructure, DDoS mitigation services, and a content delivery network. Founded in 2009, Cloudflare has risen to become an industry giant, with over 25 million global internet properties on its network.
Cloudflare has been responsible for a number of admirable initiatives, offering free web protection to human rights groups, journalists, artists, and US election websites. This goes some way to counteracting the flak Cloudflare has received in some circles for the controversial groups and users who use its services. This chequered history, however, has not affected its over 80% market share in the content delivery network field.
This is perhaps in part because it has proven sharp at staying abreast of the rapidly morphing tech and digital space and customer demands. For example, Cloudflare is shifting to 100% renewable energy usage to create a zero-emissions internet, and in 2020 released a feature that would help users navigate data privacy regulations by selecting where their data is stored.
And impressive third-quarter 2025 results show strong momentum, with revenue rising to $562 million from $430 million a year earlier. The company also raised its full-year guidance, underscoring confidence in continued growth. As demand for secure, cloud-based infrastructure keeps growing, Cloudflare's expanding platform and improving efficiency leave it well positioned to capture further gains in a rapidly growing market.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
16% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company benefits
- Competitive pay: We offer a competitive total rewards package, where every employee is an owner of our stock.
- Take-what-you-need vacation: We encourage employees to find a comfortable work-life balance by taking as many days off as they need while still being able to perform their jobs satisfactorily. (We really mean it!)
- Paid maternity & paternity leave: Our global parental leave policy allows up to sixteen paid weeks of bonding leave time for all qualifying new parents.
- Employee benefits: We offer a comprehensive benefits package including healthcare, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, pension plans in accordance with the market practice in our locations.
- Commuter program: We are flexible about where we work and value connecting at the office. Our commuter benefits program is in place to support team members' commute to work via public transportation without the extra cost burden.
- Wellbeing: Global offerings that provide mental health, childcare and family forming support to our employees across our offices.
Company HQ
China Basin, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Lee Holloway
(Co-Founder & Lead Engineer)Lee began their career as an Engineer at Homewarehouse for a year before working at Unspam Technologies for 4 years. They co-created Project Honey Pot in 2004 and Cloudflare in March 2009, serving as Lead Engineer of both to present.
Michelle Zatlyn
(Co-Founder, President & Co-Chair)Having worked for Investor Economics and I Love Rewards for a combined 4 years, Michelle worked at Toshiba for 3 years as a Product Manager. She then co-founded Cloudflare in 2009 as COO, and has served as President since 2020. She is also a Board Member at Atlassian.
Matthew Prince
(Co-Founder & CEO)Matthew studied for an MBA at Harvard Business School before co-founding Unspam Technologies in December 2001, and Cloudflare in 2009, where he has served as CEO ever since.
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