Senior Systems Engineer, MCP Server Portals

WebHosting; Lisboa; Hybrid; EUR 66,000 - 91,000; Full time

Job summary

Cloudflare in Lisbon, Portugal seeks a Senior Systems Engineer to lead design, delivery, and operation of distributed systems that authenticate users, manage OAuth credentials, and proxy MCP traffic across Cloudflare's global network.

You will own complex projects, shape security controls, and collaborate with Access, Gateway, and Developer Platform teams to evolve the MCP Portals protocol and product. This role offers a hands-on, production-focused environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, implementation, and operation of globally distributed services that connect MCP clients to authorized upstream MCP servers.
• Own complex features and service improvements from problem definition and design through implementation, rollout, observability, and production support.
• Shape technical decisions for MCP Portals, including service boundaries, security controls, compatibility, and tradeoffs among reliability, latency, and resource use.
• Evolve our implementation as the MCP specification changes, planning safe migrations for existing customers and integrations.
• Design and review authentication and authorization flows involving Cloudflare Access, OAuth, identity, credential handling, and delegated access to upstream services.
• Improve the reliability and scalability of multi-tenant systems built on the Cloudflare Developer Platform, using production data to identify and prioritize work.
• Strengthen observability through structured logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, and actionable alerts; participate in production support and incident response.
• Lead investigations of complex customer issues across services and teams, identify root causes, and drive fixes that prevent recurrence.
• Review designs and code, mentor engineers, and raise the quality of testing, deployment, and operational practices on the team.
• Partner with product, security, and engineering teams to turn customer needs and emerging standards into maintainable product capabilities.

Job description

Cloudflare ·United States, Lisbon, Portugal

Job Description

Available Locations: Lisbon, Portugal

Role Summary

Cloudflare MCP Server Portals give organizations a secure, centralized way to connect AI agents to internal and third-party tools. As a Senior Systems Engineer on the MCP Portals team, you will lead the design, delivery, and operation of distributed systems that authenticate users, manage OAuth credentials and sessions, enforce Zero Trust policies, and proxy MCP traffic across Cloudflare's global network. You will own complex projects across service boundaries, make architectural tradeoffs for your area, and help other engineers deliver reliable, secure changes. You will work closely with engineers and product managers across Access, Gateway, and Developer Platform teams as the protocol and product evolve. We are looking for a hands-on engineer who can bring clarity to ambiguous systems problems and take responsibility for outcomes in production.

Role Responsibilities

• Lead the design, implementation, and operation of globally distributed services that connect MCP clients to authorized upstream MCP servers.
• Own complex features and service improvements from problem definition and design through implementation, rollout, observability, and production support.
• Shape technical decisions for MCP Portals, including service boundaries, security controls, compatibility, and tradeoffs among reliability, latency, and resource use.
• Evolve our implementation as the MCP specification changes, planning safe migrations for existing customers and integrations.
• Design and review authentication and authorization flows involving Cloudflare Access, OAuth, identity, credential handling, and delegated access to upstream services.
• Improve the reliability and scalability of multi-tenant systems built on the Cloudflare Developer Platform, using production data to identify and prioritize work.
• Strengthen observability through structured logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, and actionable alerts; participate in production support and incident response.
• Lead investigations of complex customer issues across services and teams, identify root causes, and drive fixes that prevent recurrence.
• Review designs and code, mentor engineers, and raise the quality of testing, deployment, and operational practices on the team.
• Partner with product, security, and engineering teams to turn customer needs and emerging standards into maintainable product capabilities.

Role Requirements

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.

• For Bay Area based hires: Estimated annual salary of €66,000-91,000

Equity

This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare's equity plan.

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!

Please note that applicants who progress to the offer stage of the interview process may be asked to attend an in-person interview within one of the Cloudflare Offices or Cloudflare Hubs. More details about this will be available at that stage of the interview process.

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 [e-mail] or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.