Senior Data Scientist

CloudFlare; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k)

Employee stock participation plan

Flexible PTO

Job summary

Cloudflare in Austin is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to build scalable AI/ML models and GenAI-powered backends. You will partner with data and engineering teams to deliver features and operate data pipelines behind our products.

You will design models, publish insights at scale, and mentor the data science team in Austin while collaborating across Go-To-Market, product, and engineering functions.

Qualifications

• MS or PhD in CS, Statistics, Mathematics, or other quantitative field.
• 5+ years of data science experience in large-scale environments.
• Experience partnering with Finance, Sales, and Marketing to drive outcomes.
• 2+ years in a fast-growing SaaS company is preferred.
• Strong Python for scientific computing.
• Experience with Spark, SQL, Tableau, Google Analytics, BigQuery.
• Experience handling structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data.
• Proven track record applying data insights to business needs.
• Proficiency with GenAI frameworks for AI agents and related use cases.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Experience hiring data scientists and establishing best practices.

Responsibilities

• Partner with leaders to translate business challenges into data-driven solutions.
• Work with data engineering to improve data collection and quality.
• Align analysis with business strategy and roadmap.
• Present findings clearly to diverse audiences.
• Define, implement, and train ML and generative AI models.
• Publish model scores and insights at scale across the company.
• Identify macro and micro trends with statistical significance.
• Mentor and grow the data science team in Austin.

Skills

Python

Spark

SQL

BigQuery

GenAI

Communication

Education

MS or PhD in CS/Statistics/Math

Tools

Spark

SQL

Tableau

BigQuery

Job description

Austin, TX, United States

Position Title: Senior Data Scientist

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.

At Cloudflare, were not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; were 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 youre 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, youll fit right in.

Available Locations

Austin, US

About the Role

The Data Intelligence & Analytics organization builds the core data platform and internal products that power decision-making across the company. We design and operate large-scale data systems, own the companys data lake, ingestion infrastructure, and platform tooling, and develop end-to-end applications that transform complex datasets into fast, reliable, business-critical products used daily by go-to-market, product, and engineering teams. Our work sits at the intersection of data platforms, distributed systems, and product development, giving engineers the opportunity to own meaningful problems across the stack and build systems that truly run the business.

You will focus on building scalable, reliable AI/ML models, services and GenAI powered application backends, partnering closely with data and full-stack engineers to deliver new features and operate the pipelines and platforms behind our products. Our stack spans multiple languages and technologies, including Python, React, and TypeScript, and continues to evolve. Many of our applications also incorporate strong AI components, giving you opportunities to work with modern AI infrastructure and tools such as vector databases, MCP-based services, and Workers AI.

Responsibilities

• Partner and align with business leaders, stakeholders, product managers and internal teams to understand the business and product challenges and goals and address them using predictive analytics in a globally distributed environment.
• Understand data landscape i.e tooling, tech stack, source systems etc. and work closely with the data engineering team to improve the data collection and quality.
• Understand business/product strategy and high-level roadmap and align analysis efforts to enable them with data insights and help achieve their strategic goals.
• Strong audience focused presentation and storytelling skills focused on key takeaways in a crisp and concise manner.
• Define, implement, and train statistical, machine learning, deep learning and generative AI models.
• Use software engineering best practices to publish model scores/insights/learnings at scale within the company.
• Ability to define and spot macro and micro levels trends with statistical significance on a regular basis and understand key drivers driving those trends.
• Active role in hiring, growing, and mentoring the data scientist team in Austin.

Desirable Skills, Knowledge, and Experience

• M.S or Ph.D in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or other quantitative fields.
• 5+ years of data scientist experience with proven industry experience in a large scale environment (PBs scale & globally distributed teams)
• Strong experience working with business functions such as Finance, Sales, and Marketing to build models and drive impactful business outcomes (eg: customer and revenue growth)
• 2+ years experience with a fast-growing SaaS business based company is preferred.
• Strong experience in scientific computing using Python.
• Experience with Spark, SQL, Tableau, Google Analytics, BigQuery (or any other Big data/Cloud equivalent) etc.
• Experience working with and processing structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration experience with data engineering and data analysts teams within the function.
• Proven track record of applying data insights and machine learning in order to address business needs and drive revenue.
• Proficiency in large language models and the frameworks (Langchain, Langgraph, etc.) necessary for implementing GenAI applications, such as AI Agents, chatbots and related use cases.
• Strong communication and presentation skills catered to different audiences within the company.
• Capable of working closely with business, engineering, and product teams to ensure data initiatives are aligned with business needs.
• Experience in hiring data scientists and establishing team best practices is preferred.

Equity

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

Benefits

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

• 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?

Were not just a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company. Were 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 Cloudflares 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. Heres the deal - we dont 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.

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.