Software Engineer, Network Protocols

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.

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!

Hiring will be focused on those residing within the greater Austin, TX metro area. It will be a hybrid role, with the expectation of 2 days per week in the office.

Join the team helping shape the future of the Internet. We’re building high-performance systems that handle a quarter of the Internet’s traffic. Our work influences open standards (like QUIC, MASQUE, and ECH), involves close collaboration with the IETF, and pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in networking and security. You don’t need to be an HTTP or cryptography expert to join — we’re looking for excellent engineers who love tough problems, want to learn deeply, and are excited to contribute to one of the most technically demanding areas of infrastructure.

What you’ll do:

• Build and operate systems that terminate HTTP and TLS at Internet scale
• Migrate core infrastructure from NGINX to a next-gen Rust-based proxy
• Measure and improve protocol performance across real-world traffic
• Contribute to open source and industry standards
• Learn from and work alongside some of the leading engineers in this space

You might be a good fit if you:

• Have solid systems programming experience (Rust, C, or similar)
• Experience/understanding of HTTP/2, HTTP/3, QUIC, congestion control, or transport-layer protocols
• Thrive in complex technical domains and enjoy learning new things
• Care about building reliable, secure, and performant software
• Are motivated by impact — technical, operational, and on the Internet itself
• Come from a background that’s underrepresented in tech — we value diverse perspectives

Bonus:

• Proven ability to scale systems under high throughput and low latency demands
• Experience driving architecture or protocol-level change in production systems
• Contributions to open standards or open source projects

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.