Senior Systems Engineer, Data Platform

Position: Senior Systems Engineer, Cloudflare Data Platform

Position Title: Senior Systems Engineer, Cloudflare Data Platform

About Us

At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the worlds 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 Magazines Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the Worlds 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 e join us!

Available

Locations:
Lisbon, Portugal | London, UK | Austin, US About the Department

Emerging Technologies & Incubation (ETI) is where new and bold products are built and released within Cloudflare. Rather than being constrained by the structures which make Cloudflare a massively successful business, we are able to leverage them to deliver entirely new tools and products to our customers. Cloud flares edge and network make it possible to solve problems at massive scale and efficiency which would be impossible for almost any other organization.

About

the project

Cloudflare Data Platform has been announced during Birthday Week 2025. We are looking to extend engineering teams working on R2 Data Catalog and R2 SQL:

• R2 Data Catalog manages the Iceberg metadata and now performs ongoing maintenance, including compaction, to improve query performance

• R2 SQL is our in-house distributed SQL engine, designed to perform petabyte-scale queries over your data in R2

What you'll do

As a Senior Engineer focused on Cloudflare's storage and database products, you will shape the future of industry-leading services that redefine what is possible for developers. We don't just copy what other cloud providers do; we work backward from developer needs, reimagining solutions by leveraging our unique global network. This network brings data closer to users for unparalleled performance, allows for granular control to meet data residency requirements, and provides a platform for truly innovative data products.

You will own your code from inception to release, delivering solutions at all layers of the software stack to empower Cloudflare customers. On any given day, you might be architecting a new globally distributed data consistency model, optimizing storage engine performance, or designing a novel API for a new data-centric product. You can expect to interact with a variety of languages and technologies including, but not limited to JavaScript, Typescript, Rust, and C++.

Examples

of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

• Minimum 6 years of experience working with distributed systems.
• Experience building and managing high volume software applications.
• Solid understanding of computer science fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented or functional design.
• Knowledge of at least one modern strongly-typed programming language: we primarily use Rust, Type Script, and Go.
• Experience debugging, optimizing and identifying failure modes in a large-scale distributed system.

Bonus Points

• Experience building and managing a large scale data storage platform.
• Experience working in low-latency real time environments such as game streaming, game engine architecture, high frequency trading, payment systems
• Experience working in a non-garbage collected language such as Rust or C++.
• Experience writing Java script and Typescript. Deep Linux / UNIX systems knowledge.

What…