Distributed Systems Engineer - Data Platform - Logs and Audit Logs in London

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.

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!

We are actively seeking experienced and highly motivated Distributed Systems Engineers to join Cloudflare's dynamic DATA Organisation. This is a pivotal opportunity to contribute to the future of data at Cloudflare, working on systems that are fundamental to our global operations and customer insights. Our organisation is responsible for the entire data lifecycle, encompassing everything from initial ingestion and sophisticated processing to robust storage and efficient retrieval.

Our overarching mission is to empower customers to leverage their data effectively, enabling them to drive superior outcomes for their businesses. To achieve this, we design, build, and maintain a suite of high-performance, massively scalable distributed systems that are engineered to handle an unprecedented scale – processing well over a billion events per second.

As an engineer within our organisation, you will be presented with unique challenges across various critical parts of our intricate data stack. This role offers the chance to work on cutting-edge technologies and contribute to solutions that operate at the very edge of internet infrastructure.

Our Data Organisation is strategically composed of several key teams, each focusing on a distinct aspect of our comprehensive data platform:

• Data Delivery / Data Pipeline: This team is responsible for the design, development, and operation of our distributed data delivery pipeline. This system is a high-throughput, low-latency powerhouse, primarily written in Go, and is tasked with ingesting, processing, and intelligently routing massive volumes of data originating from across Cloudflare's vast global network to multiple core destinations.
• Analytical Database Platform: Engineers on this team contribute to and evolve our core analytical platform, which is powered by ClickHouse. This team is dedicated to building and maintaining a high-performance, scalable database platform meticulously optimised for the immense analytical workloads generated by all of Cloudflare's products and services.
• Data Retrieval (Customer-Facing Products): This department is focused on building and continuously improving our customer-facing products, making data not only accessible but also genuinely actionable for our users.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and operate a robust logging platform, ensuring reliable logging, and secure data transfer to a wide array of customer destinations and third-party integrations.
• Develop and maintain high-performance data connectors and integrations for our log-shipping products, focusing on usability, scalability and data integrity.
• Create and manage systems for handling comprehensive audit logs, ensuring they are delivered securely and adhere to strict compliance and performance standards.
• Scale and optimise the data delivery pipeline to handle massive data volumes with low latency, identifying and removing bottlenecks in data processing and routing.
• Work closely with Product and other engineering teams to define requirements for a new logging platform and integrations.
• Maintain the operational health of our log delivery platform through comprehensive monitoring and participation in an on-call rotation.
• Collaborate on the architectural evolution of our data egress platform, researching and implementing new technologies to improve efficiency and reliability.

Key Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience working in software development covering distributed systems and data pipelines.
• Strong programming skills (Go is preferable), with a deep understanding of software development best practices for building resilient, high-throughput systems.
• Hands-on experience with modern observability stacks, including Prometheus, Grafana, and a strong understanding of handling high-cardinality metrics at scale.
• Strong knowledge of SQL, including experience with query optimisation.
• A solid foundation in computer science, including algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, and concurrency.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a willingness to debug, troubleshoot, and learn about complex problems at high scale.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and communicate effectively with other teams across Cloudflare.
• Experience with data streaming technologies (e.g., Kafka, Flink) is a strong plus.
• Experience with various logging platforms or SIEMs (e.g., Splunk, Datadog, Sumo Logic) and storage destinations (e.g., S3, R2, GCS) is a plus.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools like SALT or Terraform is a plus.
• Experience with Linux container technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes, is a plus.

If you're passionate about building scalable and performant data platforms using cutting-edge technologies and want to work with a world-class team of engineers, then we want to hear from you! Join us in our mission to help build a better internet for everyone!

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws. 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.