Senior Systems Engineer, AI Applications Tooling

at Cloudflare

Hybrid

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.

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!

Preferred Location: Lisbon, Portugal | London, UK

Other Locations: Austin, TX

About the Role

We are building a new, high-impact team of AI application experts to define, drive, and develop our AI solutions, from AI observability to autonomous intelligent agents. As a Senior AI Engineer, you will be instrumental in defining Cloudflare’s AI strategy, leading critical projects such as LLM-powered code generation, AI observability, and edge-optimized model inference. This role requires bringing cutting-edge AI capabilities to our developer platform and will involve setting the technical direction for high-performance, scalable AI applications that push the boundaries of what’s possible on the web.

About the Department

Our team is part of Cloudflare's Emerging Technology and Incubation (ETI) team where new, bold products are built and released within Cloudflare. Rather than being constrained by the structures which make Cloudflare a successful business, ETI leverages our network to deliver entirely new tools and products to our customers. Our most successful endeavors include the Cloudflare development platform, which is composed of Cloudflare Workers, Durable Objects, R2, D1, and many other developer products.

What you'll do

As a Senior member of the AI Applications team, you will own and strategically shape the future of AI-powered applications on our platform. You will work across Cloudflare’s stack, collaborating with teams to define, build, and optimize mission-critical AI solutions that enhance developer experience, security, and performance.

To this end, you will:

Lead the development of high-impact AI-powered tools and integrations that enhance the developer experience, such as AI-assisted code generation and debugging.
Design, architect, and implement AI observability solutions to improve model monitoring, explainability, and performance optimization at scale.
Drive cross-functional efforts to integrate AI into Cloudflare’s developer platform, ensuring optimal scalability and efficiency.
Mentor and champion best practices, engaging with the broader AI and developer community, contributing to open-source projects, technical documentation, and blog posts.
Work across Cloudflare’s ecosystem to identify and evaluate new AI opportunities, influence technical direction, and drive adoption of AI technologies.
If applicable to ongoing projects, you may also participate in an on-call rotation to support critical AI-powered services.

Minimum Requirements

5+ years of professional experience in software engineering, with significant focus on building and deploying AI applications in a production environment.
Proven experience in building and optimizing AI applications, with a deep understanding of LLMs, model inference, and AI-powered developer tools.
Expertise in tackling complex debugging challenges, optimizing AI workloads, and working with large-scale distributed systems.

About you

We want you to love it here! This role is a good fit for you if you are:

Excited by the idea of defining Cloudflare’s AI strategy and bringing cutting-edge AI capabilities to developers.
Comfortable leading complex initiatives and working across Cloudflare’s stack, from backend services to edge computing, with a focus on scalability and efficiency.
Passionate about setting standards for integrating AI into developer workflows and improving model monitoring practices.
A strong collaborator and mentor, who values support, open dialogue, and high standards while celebrating successes and learning from challenges.
Excited to own your work from early discussions to production, and to guide collaboration with teams across Cloudflare to make AI more accessible and effective.
Naturally curious and eager to learn new technologies, experiment with AI applications, and share your findings to elevate the team's knowledge.

You’ll really feel at home if you have:

Experience leading projects building LLM-powered applications, developer tools, or agent frameworks.
Familiarity with Cloudflare’s developer platform, edge computing, or AI inference.
Experience contributing to open-source LLM or developer tools projects.
Public speaking or developer advocacy experience in the AI or software engineering space.

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!

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.