Senior Systems Engineer, Workers AI

<div class="content-intro"><h3>About Us</h3> <p>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.</p> <p>At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.</p></div><h3><strong>Available Locations: Austin, TX | New York, NY | San Francisco, CA or London, UK (Hybrid)&nbsp;</strong></h3> <h3 data-path-to-node="2">About the role</h3> <p data-path-to-node="3">You'll design and build the core infrastructure that powers AI inference across Cloudflare's global network — real-time voice, frontier open LLMs, and customer-deployed models running on a heterogeneous fleet of GPUs and next-generation accelerators in hundreds of cities worldwide. Working alongside AI/ML engineers, hardware partners, and Cloudflare product teams, you'll solve hard problems in distributed systems and high-performance computing: sub-second model cold starts, multi-accelerator workload scheduling, efficient KV cache management, and a model deployment platform serving both Cloudflare and customers bringing their own models.</p> <p data-path-to-node="4">We're building an AI inference platform embedded in the fabric of the internet — something that doesn't exist yet — and this role puts you at the center of it. We're looking for high-agency systems engineers who are energized by foundational infrastructure problems and want to define how AI runs at the edge of the network.</p> <h3 data-path-to-node="6">Responsibilities</h3> <ul> <li data-path-to-node="7,0,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,0,0" data-index-in-node="0">Platform Architecture:</strong> Develop and maintain core components of the serverless inference platform to ensure high availability and scalability for Cloudflare users.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,1,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,1,0" data-index-in-node="0">Optimization &amp; Performance:</strong> Optimize the model scheduling system to significantly increase efficiency and resource utilization across our inference infrastructure, and implement improvements to request routing logic to reduce latency for end-users.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,2,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,2,0" data-index-in-node="0">System Reliability:</strong> Drive significant, measurable improvements in the platform's reliability and resilience by identifying and mitigating systemic risks.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,3,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,3,0" data-index-in-node="0">Observability:</strong> Expand and refine the observability stack (metrics, logging, tracing) and fine-tune alerts to proactively identify and resolve production issues.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,4,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,4,0" data-index-in-node="0">Technical Leadership:</strong> Lead complex, cross-functional technical projects from initial concept and design through final deployment and operationalization.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,5,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,5,0" data-index-in-node="0">Mentorship:</strong> Act as a mentor to junior engineers and actively contribute to cultivating a strong, collaborative engineering culture within the team.</li> </ul> <h3 data-path-to-node="9">Desirable skills, Knowledge &amp; Experience</h3> <ul> <li data-path-to-node="10,0,0">Proven experience in systems engineering, with a primary focus on distributed, high-performance systems.</li> <li data-path-to-node="10,1,0">Expert proficiency in <strong data-path-to-node="10,1,0" data-index-in-node="22">Rust</strong> programming, particularly in an asynchronous environment.</li> <li data-path-to-node="10,2,0">Deep understanding and hands-on experience with relevant networking and application protocols (e.g., TCP, HTTP, WebSocket).</li> <li data-path-to-node="10,3,0">Solid experience with scaling and performance optimization techniques, including load balancing and caching in a distributed environment.</li> </ul> <h3 data-path-to-node="12">Bonus Points</h3> <ul> <li data-path-to-node="13,0,0">Demonstrable experience with container orchestration platforms, specifically <strong data-path-to-node="13,0,0" data-index-in-node="77">Kubernetes</strong> and/or <strong data-path-to-node="13,0,0" data-index-in-node="95">Nomad</strong>.</li> <li data-path-to-node="13,1,0">Familiarity with the unique architectural challenges involved in large-scale inference serving (e.g., LLMs and diffusion models).</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Compensation</strong></h3> <p>Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.</p> <ul> <li><span data-sheets-root="1">For Bay Area based hires: Estimated annual salary of $194,000 - $266,000</span></li> <li><span data-sheets-root="1">For New York City, New Jersey, Washington, Washington DC, and California (excluding Bay Area) based hires: Estimated annual salary of $185,000 - $254,000</span></li> </ul> <h3><strong>Equity</strong></h3> <p>This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare’s equity plan.</p> <h3><strong>Benefits</strong></h3> <p>Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family.&nbsp; Our benefits programs can help you pay health care expenses, support caregiving, build capital for the future and make life a little easier and fun!&nbsp; The below is a description of our benefits for employees in the United States, and benefits may vary for employees based outside the U.S.</p> <h3><strong>Health &amp; Welfare Benefits</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Medical/Rx Insurance</li> <li>Dental Insurance</li> <li>Vision Insurance</li> <li>Flexible Spending Accounts</li> <li>Commuter Spending Accounts</li> <li>Fertility &amp; Family Forming Benefits</li> <li>On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program</li> <li>Global Travel Medical Insurance</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Financial Benefits</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Short and Long Term Disability Insurance</li> <li>Life &amp; Accident Insurance</li> <li>401(k) Retirement Savings Plan</li> <li>Employee Stock Participation Plan</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Time Off</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave</li> <li>Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave</li> </ul><div class="content-conclusion"><h3>What Makes Cloudflare Special?</h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p> <p><a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/protecting-free-expression-online/"><strong>Project Galileo</strong></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">: 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.</span></p> <p><strong><a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/athenian/">Athenian Project</a></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">: 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.</span></p> <p><a href="https://1.1.1.1/"><strong>1.1.1.1</strong></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">: We released</span><a href="https://1.1.1.1/"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">1.1.1.1</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 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</span><a href="https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/privacy/public-dns-resolver"> privacy commitment</a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and ensure that no user data is sold to advertisers or used to target consumers.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you!</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Please note that applicants who progress to the offer stage of the interview process may be asked to attend an in-person interview within one of the Cloudflare Offices or Cloudflare Hubs.&nbsp; More details about this will be available at that stage of the interview process.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cloudflare is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. &nbsp;We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and place great value in both diversity and inclusiveness. &nbsp;All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to their, or any other person's, perceived or actual</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">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. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">We are an AA/Veterans/Disabled Employer.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. &nbsp;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. &nbsp;If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact us via e-mail at </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">hr@cloudflare.com</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.</span></p></div>