Senior Systems Engineer, Pipelines - Cloudflare

About Us

At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. We run one of the world’s largest networks, powering millions of websites and protecting them from attacks without requiring hardware or software changes. We value builders who spot "normalized" problems and use AI-native curiosity to create solutions.

About the Role

Emerging Technologies & Incubation (ETI) is where new and bold products are built. As a Senior Systems Engineer, you will design and implement the foundational layers of our next-generation data services. We are looking for engineers who build infrastructure software from scratch, rather than those who operate existing platforms like Kafka, Flink, or Spark.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement foundational layers for core storage and streaming products.
• Own code from inception to release, delivering solutions across the software stack.
• Architect globally distributed data consistency models and optimize storage engine performance.
• Design novel APIs for data-centric products.
• Work with languages including Rust, C++, JavaScript, and TypeScript.

Desirable Skills & Experience

• 6+ years of experience designing, building, and deploying internals of large-scale distributed systems or storage engines from scratch.
• Direct experience writing core components of a storage or streaming system.
• Proven track record of debugging complex race conditions, split-brain scenarios, and network partition failures.
• Expert-level proficiency in Rust or C++.

Bonus Points

• Experience building time-series databases, log-structured merge-trees, or real-time stream processing engines.
• Contributions to distributed systems research (e.g., consensus, CRDTs, database theory).

Benefits

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) retirement plan and employee stock participation.
• Flexible paid time off and parental/medical leave.
• Fertility and family-forming benefits.
• On-demand mental health support.