Principal People Team Business Partner, Cloudflare
M&A / Strategy
$187-257k
+ Equity
Web performance and security platform
Be an early applicant
Web performance and security platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$187-257k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help build a better Internet that is bold and ambitious.
Role
Who you are
- This is a builder role for someone who thrives under compressed timelines, loves creating order out of ambiguity, and is obsessed with delivering a world-class onboarding experience for newly acquired teams
- Experience: 6–10+ years of experience across People Operations, HRBP roles, or Program Management, with at least 3+ years directly owning People/HR workstreams for M&A transactions in high-growth tech environments
- Startup Agility: Proven track record of building 0-to-1 processes. You excel in fast-moving, unstructured environments where templates are built on the fly
- Execution Under Pressure: Outstanding project management skills; calm under pressure and capable of handling highly confidential data and compressed, unpredictable deal timelines
- Technical & Core HR Fluency: Solid foundational understanding of employment legal basics, high-growth compensation structures, and visa/immigration complexities (critical for international or highly technical talent)
- Influence Without Authority: Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills. Ability to earn the trust of elite technical founders and seamlessly align cross-functional internal executives
What the job involves
- We are seeking a high-velocity, strategic People M&A Leader to own the human side of our mergers and acquisitions end-to-end
- In this role, you will be the single designated point person (DRI) and strategic counterpart to our Corporate Development team. You will own the People lifecycle for all deals—from early-stage confirmatory due diligence through post-close integration
- Acting as the ultimate "Hub to the Spokes," you will translate deal rationale into practical execution strategies, coordinating fluidly across Recruiting, Total Rewards, People Operations, Workplace Immigration, and Employment Legal
- Corporate Development Partnership & Diligence
- Serve as the primary People team representative alongside Corporate Development and Legal from deal kickoff through close
- Lead rapid-fire HR due diligence to assess target company culture, compensation structures, and compliance risks
- Evaluate technical talent density and provide critical input into deal structures, focus areas for retention pools, and offer letters
- Partner with finance and legal to analyze equity structures, ensuring seamless alignment on equity rollover mechanics and cash/stock retention incentives
- Cross-Functional Orchestration (The Hub to the Spokes)
- Mobilize and quarterback cross-functional People teams (Recruiting, Comp, People Ops, Immigration, Payroll) to ensure workstreams are perfectly sequenced (e.g., ensuring visa/immigration verifications clear before offer letters drop)
- Build the infrastructure, checklists, and automated workflows that don't exist yet to scale our M&A engine
- Identify recurring failure modes across deals and implement upstream fixes to continuously optimize our playbooks
- Integration & Elite Talent Retention
- Provide a "white-glove" experience to incoming talent, serving as their primary advocate, guide, and escalation point as they navigate our culture and systems
- Partner with leadership and Internal Comms to execute empathetic change management, addressing workforce anxiety through transparent communications, FAQs, and town halls
- Design and execute organizational mapping and day-1 onboarding schedules to ensure acquired technical teams maintain momentum and feel integrated from day one
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.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 81 more jobs at Cloudflare