CTO Operations Lead

Webhosting; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity plan

Benefits package

Job summary

Cloudflare, a global leader in Internet infrastructure, seeks an CTO Operations Lead to act as a strategic force multiplier for the Chief Technology Officer. You will manage priorities, ensuring the CTO’s time aligns with critical goals, and you will navigate cross-functional landscapes with operational rigor and strategic insight.

You will partner with the CTO to craft compelling narratives, lead special projects, and prepare executive briefings for key external engagements.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in technical program management, business operations, or a chief of staff-style role.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with ability to create executive briefings and high-quality presentations.
• Experience handling operational data including budgets, resource planning, or headcount allocation.

Responsibilities

• Drive Operational Excellence: Orchestrate the rhythm of the business for the CTO department, ensuring regulatory obligations are met.
• Strategic briefing & preparation: research context for the CTO ahead of external engagements and customer calls with actionable insights.
• Actionable follow-through: attend high-priority calls to capture context and drive accountability across teams.
• Narrative construction: craft presentations and materials for internal and external events.
• Project leadership: lead special initiatives within the Office of the CTO and define scope and success metrics.

Skills

Program management

Communication

Operational acumen

Discretion & judgment

Adaptability

Job description

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.

At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a “normalized” problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.

Available Locations: Austin

About the Department

The Office of the CTO is the strategic engine for Cloudflare’s technology vision. We look beyond the horizon to identify emerging trends, drive technical innovation, and ensure our engineering culture remains principled and curious. We operate at the intersection of deep technical strategy and high-level business execution.

What You’ll Do

As the CTO Operations Lead you will act as a strategic force multiplier for the Chief Technology Officer. Working alongside the CTO Chief of Staff you will help manage priorities, ensuring the CTO’s time is aligned with Cloudflare’s most critical technical and business goals. This role requires a blend of operational rigor, strategic thinking, and the ability to navigate complex cross-functional landscapes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Drive Operational Excellence:Orchestrate the rhythm of the business for the CTO department. This includes ensuring the department remains compliant with all training and regulatory obligations.
• Strategic Briefing & Preparation:Research and synthesize context for the CTO ahead of external engagements and key customer calls. You will ensure the CTO is equipped with actionable insights, background data, and strategic talking points to maximize the impact of every interaction.
• Actionable Follow-Through:Attend high-priority internal and external calls to capture critical context. You will own the lifecycle of action items, driving accountability across teams and ensuring that decisions made in meetings translate into tangible results.
• Narrative Construction:Partner with the CTO to craft compelling presentations and written materials for internal all-hands, board meetings, and external keynotes. You will help translate complex technical concepts into clear, impactful narratives.
• Project Leadership:Lead special projects and initiatives within the Office of the CTO, often navigating ambiguity to define scope, stakeholders, and success metrics.

Examples of Desirable Skills, Knowledge and Experience

• Program Management Expertise:Demonstrated experience in technical program management, business operations, or a chief of staff-style role. You are comfortable managing complex timelines and multiple stakeholders.
• Communication Mastery:Exceptional written and verbal communication skills. You can distill complex information into clear executive briefings and have experience creating high-quality presentation materials.
• Operational Acumen:Experience managing operational data, including budgets, resource planning, or headcount allocation. You are comfortable using data to inform decision-making.
• Discretion & Judgment:High level of integrity and discretion in handling sensitive and confidential information. You possess the professional maturity to represent the Office of the CTO internally and externally.
• Adaptability:You thrive in fast-paced environments where priorities can shift. You approach challenges with a solution-oriented mindset and are capable of working autonomously.

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on level and work location.

Equity

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

Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family. Our benefits programs can help you pay health care expenses, support caregiving, build capital for the future and make life a little easier and fun! The below is a description of our benefits for employees in the United States, and benefits may vary for employees based outside the U.S.

Health & Welfare Benefits

Time Off

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.