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.

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

Austin, US

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!

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, benchmark and optimize Cloudflare’s worldwide fleet of servers

What You'll Do

Work with product teams at Cloudflare to gather 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)

Work with silicon partner as well as ODM partners to specify, design and determine the key performance indicators of Cloudflare’s next generation of servers for the fleet

Develop tools and benchmarks to analyze system performance and efficiency

Collaborate with performance team and software teams to optimize software performance on the hardware

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

Knowledge and experience with server hardware including CPU, memory & storage technology

Extensive experience with compute server design, validation, performance benchmarking, debugging, and deployment into data center

Extensive knowledge of CPU architectures, including both x86 and ARM

Knowledge of performance optimization based on hardware / software codesign

Extensive experience in testing, benchmarking, and/or simulating hardware performance and an understanding of no-stone-left-unturned experimentation

Experience Of Linux Kernel Development, Or Linux Driver Development.

Extensive experience with programming in bash, python and Linux task automation

Extensive experience with software development tools such as Git, TeamCity and Jira

Experience of observability and monitoring tools such as Prometheus and Grafana, as well as the ability to observe trends over time

Excited to learn about the Cloudflare hardware and products used by 20% of all web sites

Excited to learn how a diverse server fleet is managed at scale with tools such as traffic management, capacity planning and failover mechanisms

Excited by the idea of optimizing complex distributed systems, discovering system bottlenecks and proposing solutions to solve in current system architecture or to inform future software/hardware development

Bonus Points

Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Compute Science

Experience Of Working With External Vendors On Server Hardware Qualification.

Knowledge of Redfish, IPMI and server remote management protocols, and experience with firmware updates

Knowledge and experience with server hardware including motherboard designs, chassis designs, and thermal designs

Experience With Compiler Optimization

Experience In A Hyperscale Cloud Infrastructure Role Is Also Valuable

Knowledge of XPU/accelerator architectures is a plus

Compensation

Compensation May Be Adjusted Depending On Work Location And Level.

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!

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