Hardware Systems Engineer

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.

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.

Available Locations: Austin

About The Department

Cloudflare’s Infrastructure group is responsible for building our global network. Our Hardware Engineering team helps research, develop, test, and deploy new equipment enabling 20% of the world’s internet traffic to be served smoothly. Deployed across 330 cities in 120+ countries, the hardware we select helps improve the security, reliability, and performance of the Internet.

About The Role

We need to make thoughtful infrastructure choices affecting a significant portion of the Internet. Hardware we work with includes servers and components, as well as PDUs and network hardware. As a Hardware Systems Engineer, you will work with colleagues on the Engineering teams, Product and Performance teams, and Hardware Sourcing teams to design, qualify and maintain Cloudflare’s worldwide fleet of servers

What You'll Do

• Support and assist in the end to end server product qualification from concept to deployment, ensuring hardware designs (electrical, thermal and mechanical) are optimized for seamless, large-scale implementation by the Infrastructure Operations team.
• Support and assist gathering product requirements for next generation of servers, and work with silicon vendors to assess performance and select the components (CPU, memory, disk, NIC, GPUs etc)
• Collaborate closely with strategy, sourcing, and capacity planning teams to steer server infrastructure initiatives in alignment with Cloudflare’s business goals
• Collaborate with the Site Reliability Engineering team to onboard and integrate the next generation of servers into provisioning tools and fleet management tools.
• Collaborate with performance team and software teams to optimize software performance on the hardware
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deploy firmware updates, triage hardware problem reports, resolve hardware issues, maintain automation tools.
• Communicate your results and updates through blog posts and internal talks

Examples Of Desirable Skills, Knowledge And Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science
• Foundational knowledge or internship/academic experience with compute design engineering, validation, performance benchmarking, debugging, and deployment used in the data center
• Curiosity and desire to learn about the Cloudflare hardware and products used by 20% of all web sites
• Desire to learn how a diverse server fleet is managed at scale with tools such as traffic management, capacity planning and failover mechanisms
• Desire to learn the tools Cloudflare uses to maintain and monitor our hardware
• Harness AI tools and automation to fundamentally accelerate the qualification lifecycle, driving exponential efficiency gains and quality standards.
• Possess the organizational skills and interest to manage cross-functional technical projects, ensuring architectural designs seamlessly align with delivery schedules.
• Thrive as a deeply self-motivated engineer in ambiguous environments, demonstrating a strong bias for action and the ability to drive initiatives forward without close supervision.

Bonus Points

• Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science
• Knowledge and experience with server hardware including motherboard designs, chassis designs, thermal designs, as well as CPU, memory & storage technology
• Knowledge of bash, python and basic Linux task automation
• Knowledge of Redfish, IPMI and server remote management protocols, and experience with firmware updates
• Knowledge or experience of performance optimization based on hardware / software codesign
• Knowledge and experience of debugging server hardware faults and the ability to engage with our sourcing team and vendors to improve quality
• Experience of working with external vendors on server hardware qualification.
• Experience of observability and monitoring tools such as Prometheus and Grafana, as well as the ability to observe trends over time
• Experience with software development tools and processes such as Git, TeamCity and Jira
• Experience in a hyperscale cloud infrastructure role also valuable

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.

Equity

This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare’s equity plan.

Benefits

Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family. 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! 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.

Health & Welfare Benefits

• Medical/Rx Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Commuter Spending Accounts
• Fertility & Family Forming Benefits
• On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
• Global Travel Medical Insurance

Financial Benefits

• Short and Long Term Disability Insurance
• Life & Accident Insurance
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
• Employee Stock Participation Plan

Time Off

• Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave
• Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave

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!

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. More details about this will be available at that stage of the interview process.

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.