Software Engineer - Magic Firewall at Cloudflare

Software Engineer - Magic Firewall

Cloudflare, Austin, TX

Help us build a better Internet

About Us

At Cloudflare, we have our eyes set on an ambitious goal: to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers trillions of requests per month. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare have all 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 recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer and named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list.

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!

About the Role

As a software engineer you will be responsible for building and maintaining the technologies that comprise Magic Firewall, a network-level firewall delivered through Cloudflare. You will contribute to systems in both our high-performance global edge network as well as our internal microservice cluster. You will be an early member of a team with expanding scope who’s building distributed network functions at scale.

Examples of software systems that you’ll be working with include:

A distributed, high-performance Layer 3/4 network firewall
A global analytics pipeline used to deliver insights to customers and internal teams alike
REST APIs that customers use to gain visibility and control over how Cloudflare is protecting their infrastructure

You will participate in all stages of the software enable development lifecycle, from designing and documenting systems, to writing code and automated tests, to planning, managing, and monitoring production software deployments. You will work with a wide range of technologies and programming languages, including Go, Rust, Python, iptables, nftables, the Linux network stack, eBPF, ClickHouse, Kafka, Salt, PostgreSQL, Grafana, Kubernetes, and more.

Other responsibilities include:

Collaborating with teams such as Security, Network Engineering, Reliability Engineering, and Product Management to design effective and scalable solutions to difficult technical problems
Reviewing work from your peers throughout all stages of the software development lifecycle
Working with our support teams to ensure customer delight
Mentoring team members to help bring out their best work
Representing the team within the company through blogging and tech talks

Because you’ll be solving problems of massive scale and significance, and shaping the future of security and performance on the Internet, 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.

Example of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

Systems-level programming experience in Go, Rust, C, or C++.
A solid grasp of networking protocols in Layers 3 and 4 of the OSI Model.
Experience with Linux networking internals.
Experience building network security devices, including but not limited to: firewalls, NATs, load balancers, QoS, etc.
Experience in implementing secure and highly-available distributed systems.
Strong ability to debug issues in complex systems.
Strong interpersonal and communication skills. Curiosity and empathy are coveted traits here!

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: We equip politically and artistically important organizations and journalists 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: We created 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.

Path Forward Partnership: Since 2016, we have partnered with Path Forward, a nonprofit organization, to create 16-week positions for mid-career professionals who want to get back to the workplace after taking time off to care for a child, parent, or loved one.

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 policy 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!

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]re.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.

About Cloudflare

About us

Cloudflare is the simplest way to make websites faster, safer and smarter. Millions of websites have signed up for our service, including large enterprises, major consumer destinations, and government agencies. With offices in San Francisco and London, Cloudflare operates a highly-available global network that has security measures built into every layer and regularly clocks in lightning-fast speeds.

We're on a mission to build a better web - and we need smart, talented people to join our team. Our team works on the forefront of leading technologies including nginx, Go and Lua programming languages. We're a strong supporter of the open source community and regularly share our technology learnings at https://blog.cloudflare.com.