Distributed Systems Engineer - Data Platform (Delivery, Database, Retrieval)

JobCubby; Atlanta, Northern (GA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 206,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401(k)

Equity plan

Flexible PTO

Job summary

Cloudflare is seeking experienced engineers for its DATA Org to build the data lifecycle systems that power real-time visibility for customers. You will work on a high-throughput data delivery pipeline, a ClickHouse-based analytical platform, and customer-facing GraphQL APIs, delivering reliable performance at scale.

You will join a team that values collaboration, iteration, and the use of modern tooling to ship faster while maintaining quality.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience designing distributed systems.
• Strong Go programming skills and CS fundamentals.
• Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, and high-cardinality metrics.
• Strong SQL knowledge and database tuning.
• Knowledge of ClickHouse, Kafka or Flink is a plus.
• Experience building GraphQL APIs and with IaC tools like Terraform is a plus.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable distributed systems across the data lifecycle.
• Build high-throughput data delivery components with low latency.
• Develop and enhance the Cloudflare Analytical Platform.
• Scale and monitor large-scale database clusters to handle growing data.
• Develop and enhance customer-facing GraphQL APIs, log delivery, and alerting.
• Identify and remove bottlenecks across data platforms.
• Collaborate with other teams to meet data needs and enable data-driven decisions.
• Contribute to the upstream ClickHouse project and explore new tech.
• Participate in next-generation data platform research.

Skills

Distributed systems

Go

Prometheus

Grafana

SQL

Data structures

Algorithms

Problem solving

Collaboration

ClickHouse

Kafka

GraphQL

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

Tools

ClickHouse

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka

Flink

GraphQL

Job description

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.

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

• Atlanta, US
• Austin, US
• Denver, US
• Lisbon, Portugal
• Seattle, US
• Washington DC, US

Applications will be accepted until November 23, 2026.

About Role

We are looking for experienced and highly motivated engineers to join our DATA Org and help build the future of data at Cloudflare. Our organisation is responsible for the entire data lifecycle - from ingestion and processing to storage and retrieval - powering the critical logs and analytics that provide our customers with real-time visibility into the health and performance of their online properties.

Our mission is to empower customers to leverage their data to drive better outcomes for their business. We build and maintain a suite of high-performance, scalable systems that handle more than a billion events in a second. As an engineer in our organisation, you will have the opportunity to work on complex distributed systems challenges across different parts of our data stack.

Our Data Org is composed of several key teams, and you could contribute to any of the following areas:

• Data Delivery: You will build and operate our distributed data delivery pipeline, a high-throughput, low-latency system (primarily written in Go) responsible for ingesting, processing, and routing massive volumes of data from across Cloudflare's global network to multi-core destination.
• Analytical Database Platform: Contribute to our core analytical platform powered by ClickHouse. This team builds and maintains a high-performance, scalable database platform optimised for the immense analytical workloads generated by our products and services.
• Data Retrieval: Be responsible for building the customer-facing products that make data accessible and actionable. This includes developing our public GraphQL API, building robust log delivery solutions and integrations with customer destinations, and contributing to our alerting products, which empower users to configure and receive near real-time alerts based on the logs and metrics observed by our data platform.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable and reliable distributed systems across the entire data lifecycle.
• Build and optimise key components of our high-throughput data delivery platform to ensure data integrity and low-latency delivery.
• Develop new and improve existing components for the Cloudflare Analytical Platform to extend functionality and performance.
• Scale, monitor, and maintain the performance of our large-scale database clusters to accommodate the growing volume of data.
• Develop and enhance our customer-facing GraphQL APIs, log delivery, and alerting solutions, focusing on performance, reliability, and user experience.
• Work to identify and remove bottlenecks across our data platforms, from streamlining data ingestion processes to optimizing query performance.
• Collaborate with other teams across Cloudflare to understand their data needs and build solutions that empower them to make data-driven decisions.
• Collaborate with the ClickHouse open-source community to add new features and contribute to the upstream codebase.
• Participate in the development of the next generation of our data platforms, including researching and evaluating new technologies and approaches.

Key Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience working in software development covering distributed systems and databases.
• Strong programming skills (Golang is preferable), as well as a deep understanding of software development best practices and principles.
• Hands-on experience with modern observability stacks, including Prometheus, Grafana, and a strong understanding of handling high-cardinality metrics at scale.
• Strong knowledge of SQL and database internals, including experience with database design, optimisation, and performance tuning.
• A solid foundation in computer science, including algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, and concurrency.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a willingness to debug, troubleshoot, and learn about complex problems at high scale.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and communicate effectively with other teams across Cloudflare.
• Experience with ClickHouse is a plus.
• Experience with data streaming technologies (e.g., Kafka, Flink) is a plus.
• Experience developing and scaling APIs, particularly GraphQL, is a plus.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools like SALT or Terraform is a plus.
• Experience with Linux container technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes, is a plus.

If you're passionate about building scalable and performant data platforms using cutting-edge technologies and want to work with a world-class team of engineers.

This role requires flexibility to be on-call outside of standard working hours to address technical issues as needed.

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.

• For Portugal based hires: Estimated annual salary is between €54,000 - €91,000.
• For Colorado based hires: Estimated annual salary of $136,000 - $187,000.
• For Washington based hires: Estimated annual salary of $150,000 - $206,000

Equity

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

Benefits

Health & Welfare Benefits

• Medical/Rx Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Commuter Spending Accounts
• Fertility & Family Forming Benefits
• On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
• Global Travel Medical Insurance

Financial Benefits

• Short and Long Term Disability Insurance
• Life & Accident Insurance
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
• Employee Stock Participation Plan

Time Off

• Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave
• Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave

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.

Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. 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.

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.