Senior Distributed Systems Engineer - Cache

About the Role

Cloudflare is seeking a Senior Distributed Systems Engineer to join the Cache team. You will build and operate the high-performance reverse proxy and caching data plane at the edge, built on Pingora (Cloudflare's open-source Rust framework). Your work will directly impact request latency, origin load, and availability across our global network.

Key Responsibilities

• Data Plane Engineering: Design and operate high-performance cache and proxy services.
• System Optimization: Contribute to Pingora, focusing on asynchronous I/O, connection handling, and memory/disk efficiency.
• Cache Logic: Improve object placement, eviction policies, and range-request handling.
• Distributed Systems: Build globally distributed purge and Tiered Cache systems.
• End-to-End Ownership: Write technical designs, implement services, manage staged rollouts, and participate in on-call rotations.
• Collaboration: Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver shared platform capabilities and customer-facing APIs.

Requirements

• 4+ years of professional experience in production software systems.
• Proficiency in a systems language (Rust, Go, C, or C++) with a willingness to work in Rust.
• Deep understanding of HTTP semantics and transport protocols (TCP, TLS, QUIC).
• Experience with Linux systems, networking, concurrency, and performance analysis.
• Strong track record of production ownership, including monitoring, debugging, and incident response.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Willingness to leverage AI-assisted engineering tools while maintaining high standards for correctness and security.

Nice-to-Have

• Professional experience with Rust or high-performance asynchronous systems.
• Background in CDNs, distributed storage, or latency-sensitive data-plane services.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, or ClickHouse.
• Experience contributing to open-source software.