Principal Systems Engineer, IPC

About Us

At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers millions of websites and other Internet properties for customers ranging from individual bloggers to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare all have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. 

We realize people do not fit into neat boxes. We are looking for curious and empathetic individuals who are committed to developing themselves and learning new skills, and we are ready to help you do that. We cannot complete our mission without building a diverse and inclusive team. We hire the best people based on an evaluation of their potential and support them throughout their time at Cloudflare. Come join us! 

Available Locations: London or Lisbon

• The Team

  Cloudflare's CDN group provides the core infrastructure for services at the edge, a massive distributed system where milliseconds matter. As part of this group, the Inter-Process Communication (IPC) team is responsible for building and maintaining the high-performance communication layer that connects all the different services. Our team’s mission is to ensure this communication is as reliable, secure, and fast as humanly possible. We believe that Rust is the right tool for this challenge, and our entire codebase is built with it.

  The Role

  As a Senior Engineer/Architect on the Platform team, you will be instrumental in building the next generation of our communication strategy. This is more than just maintaining a system; it's about innovating and building a platform that empowers teams across the company. You will coordinate efforts across multiple teams to design, build, and deploy new features that enhance the availability, safety, and reliability of our edge network. This is a unique opportunity to sit at the nexus of Cloudflare's operations, influencing how millions of people experience the internet. Your primary focus will be on building a high-performance platform with a keen eye on operational excellence. This includes defining and implementing clear Service Level Objectives (SLOs), monitoring key metrics, and managing error rates to ensure a robust and reliable system. As a Senior Software Engineer on the IPC team, you'll be at the forefront of Cloudflare's core infrastructure. This isn't just about writing code; it's about shaping the future of how our distributed systems communicate. You will serve as a key technical leader, responsible for designing and implementing the next generation of our communication protocols and their associated libraries. Your work will directly enable other engineering teams to build innovative services on top of a robust, high-performance foundation. This role requires a unique blend of deep technical expertise and the ability to influence others. You'll work across teams to define new features, ensure operational excellence, and drive the adoption of your solutions. Your primary focus will be on:

  What You'Ll Bring

  We are looking for seasoned professionals with a strong background in software architecture and distributed systems.

  Bonus Points

  Most importantly, we're seeking a builder—someone who is excited by the challenge of working on a system at a scale few companies ever reach. Join us in our mission to build a better internet for everyone!
• Architecting and building new features for our high-performance communication protocol.
• Championing operational excellence by defining and measuring key metrics like Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and error rates.
• Driving cross-team collaboration to ensure our communication platform meets the needs of teams across the organization.
• Deep expertise in Rust, with a history of building complex, production-grade applications.
• Strong competencies in computer science, including a solid understanding of algorithms, data structures, and concurrency control.
• Experience with performance engineering and a proven track record of optimizing high-throughput, low-latency systems.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills to drive consensus and coordinate with diverse engineering teams.
• A passion for continuous improvement in both operations and product development.
• A deep understanding of web protocols and web servers.
• Experience with distributed systems architecture.
• Knowledge of web security issues and industry standards.
• Familiarity with Prometheus for monitoring and alerting.

What Makes Cloudflare Special?

We’re not just a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company. We’re a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company with a soul. Fundamental to our mission to help build a better Internet is protecting the free and open Internet.

Project Galileo: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries with powerful tools to defend themselves against attacks that would otherwise censor their work, technology already used by Cloudflare’s enterprise customers--at no cost.

Athenian Project: In 2017, we created the Athenian Project to ensure that state and local governments have the highest level of protection and reliability for free, so that their constituents have access to election information and voter registration. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.

1.1.1.1: We released 1.1.1.1 to help fix the foundation of the Internet by building a faster, more secure and privacy-centric public DNS resolver. This is available publicly for everyone to use - it is the first consumer-focused service Cloudflare has ever released. Here’s the deal - we don’t store client IP addresses never, ever. We will continue to abide by our privacy commitment and ensure that no user data is sold to advertisers or used to target consumers.

Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you!

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Please note that any offer of employment may be conditioned on your authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export laws without sponsorship for an export license.

Cloudflare is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and place great value in both diversity and inclusiveness.  All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to their, or any other person's, perceived or actual race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law. We are an AA/Veterans/Disabled Employer.

Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities.  Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job. Examples of reasonable accommodations include, but are not limited to, changing the application process, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.  If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact us via e-mail at hr@cloudflare.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.