Data Center 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.

Data Center Engineer

Available locations: Austin

About the department

In this role, you will be focused on maintaining the Cloudflare global network. You'll work closely with Cloudflare’s SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) team, Network Engineering team, Network Deployment Engineering team and with various vendors and partners (including hardware vendors, datacenter and network providers, and ISPs) to maintain and improve our global infrastructure. You will further be responsible for the development and implementation of consistent processes and visibility measurements for consistent and effective management of our infrastructure. This is a highly visible position that requires deep technical understanding of datacenter infrastructure, networking (physical), and basic experience with data analysis and project management.

To be successful in this position, you should have excellent technical skills, communication skills, and be able to navigate a range of challenges and constraints (e.g. schedule adherence, time zones, and cultures). You will have the opportunity to (literally) build a faster, safer Internet for our millions of users and the billions of web surfers that visit their sites each month.

Who you are

You will thrive in a hypergrowth engineering environment and be self driven with a keen attention to detail. You will come with a deep technical understanding of Data Center colocation environments, network architecture and server technologies. You will be used to working through partners to support infrastructure delivery to a number of remote locations. You will have had experience managing operational environments, and used to developing new approaches to improve delivery efficiency or operational stability.

What you'll do

• Collaborating with internal teams (Infrastructure, Network Engineering and SRE). Create documentation and manage remote contractors to complete datacenter tasks, working with hardware manufacturers, datacenter and network providers, logistics partners and other service providers in support of our 330+ cities and 125+ countries
• Maintain Data Center environment operational availability
• Leverage AI tools to automate repetitive operational tasks, accelerate documentation, and speed up troubleshooting and root-cause analysis
• Creating and maintaining documentation, plans, SOP’s, MOP’s etc.
• Support and configure network infrastructure where required
• Providing feedback to internal teams to support internal tools and external vendor partnerships

Required Experience

• Experience with Juniper, Cisco and DWDM network equipment
• Minimum of 4 years experience of Linux systems administration
• Experience managing and instructing remote contractors
• Familiarity with work required to stand up infrastructure in remote colocation facilities
• Experience running and improving operational processes, including automation tooling, in a rapidly changing environment
• Familiarity with day-to-day tasks and projects common to Data Center Operations (deployment, migration, decommissioning etc.)
• Comfortable handling basic program management responsibilities (prioritization, planning, scheduling, status reporting) such as JIRA
• Participate in a shared on-call rotation to maintain 24×7 operational availability of the global network.

Other Responsibilities May Include

• Aggressively seek opportunities to introduce cutting-edge technology and automation solutions that are effective, efficient and scalable in order to improve our ability to deploy and maintain our global infrastructure
• Assist with the definition, documentation and implementation of consistent processes across all region
• Limited travel

Examples of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

• Bachelor’s degree; technical background in engineering, computer science, or MIS
• Direct experience executing on complex data center/infrastructure projects
• Previous experience installing / maintaining data center (and other IT) infrastructure and DCIM tools
• Experience running and improving operational processes in a rapidly changing environment
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and interpersonal skills
• Must be proactive with proven ability to learn fast and execute on multiple tasks simultaneously
• Ability to manage Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets
• Comfortable handling basic program management responsibilities (prioritization, planning, scheduling, status reporting) such as JIRA
• Must be a team player

Bonus Points

• Multi-lingual; experience working with infrastructure in multiple countries
• Comfortable with remote “lights-out” and out-of-band access to data center resources
• Linux certifications (RHCSA etc.)
• Network certifications (CCNA, JNCIA or higher)
• Configuration management systems such as Saltstack, Chef, Puppet or Ansible
• Scripting or software development experience in Bash, Python or Go-lang
• Familiarity with load balancing and reverse proxies such as Nginx, Varnish, HAProxy, Apache
• Experience in working within a large scale SaaS vendor

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.