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, TX
About the Role
The CNI team builds and operates the systems that let Cloudflare's enterprise customers connect their networks directly to Cloudflare through private, dedicated interconnects — rather than traversing the public Internet. The product, Cloudflare Network Interconnect (CNI), supports various interconnect types across hundreds of locations worldwide.These systems underpin Magic Transit, Cloudflare WAN, Zero Trust, and application security for some of Cloudflare's largest customers.
What you'll do
As an Engineering Manager on the CNI team you will hire, mentor, and coach a distributed team of Software Engineers. You will play a key role in developing the team and shaping its culture and technical vision. You will work closely with Product Managers and other Engineering leaders to communicate the vision, prioritize the team's roadmap, and achieve cross-functional objectives. You are a growth-oriented individual who enjoys being outside of your comfort zone. You are comfortable in a fast-paced but sensible work environment. You value curiosity and empathy and lead with these values.
Responsibilities
- Using tools and processes to convey project status and resolve blockages.
- Understanding the technical implications of work across BGP, physical and virtual interconnect provisioning, and distributed control-plane services in order to influence scope, work across teams, and help unblock projects.
- Taking responsibility for the team's production services by organizing on-call rotations, handling customer escalations, and overseeing incident response and follow-up.
- Driving reliability and automation improvements for the provisioning pipeline that turns a customer order into a live, monitored BGP session.
- Coordinating with Network Operations, Sales Engineering, and Partner teams on interconnect capacity planning, partner onboarding, and cloud provider integrations.
Desirable Skills, Knowledge, and Experience:
- 3+ years experience as an Engineering Manager for a team of Software and Systems Engineers.
- Demonstrate a track record of managing a team including hiring, onboarding, and professional development. You inspire your team to reach higher. You're as good at explaining "why" as you are "how".
- Excel at planning and overseeing execution to meet commitments and deliver with predictability.
- Technical background in IP networking: BGP, Layer 3 routing, physical and virtual interconnect technologies (cross-connects, VLANs, partner fabric integrations).
- Experience building or operating provisioning/automation systems for network infrastructure.
- Experience with monitoring, alerting, and debugging distributed systems — ideally services that bridge software and physical network operations.
- Experience participating in and/or managing an on-call rotation for production services with direct customer impact.
- Willingness to adopt and integrate AI tools and systems into your workflow.
- Clarity in written and verbal communication.
Bonus Points
- Hands-on experience with BGP configuration, route policy, and peering operations.
- Familiarity with network inventory and IPAM systems (e.g., NetBox).
- Experience with cloud provider networking (AWS Direct Connect, GCP Partner Interconnect, Azure ExpressRoute).
- Knowledge of GRE, VXLAN, or other overlay/tunnel technologies.
- Systems-level programming experience in Go, Python, Rust, C, or C++.
- Experience with Kubernetes-based service deployments and CI/CD pipelines.
- Comfort with customer-facing technical communication (escalation handling, partner engagements).
- Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools (e.g., code completion, codebase analysis, log/data exploration) in a professional setting.
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 [email protected] or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.
