Senior Software Engineer - Load Balancing

Xapply; Austin, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Cloudflare is seeking a talented Systems Engineer to join the Load Balancing team in Austin, TX. You will work on Go-based microservices, using Docker, PostgreSQL, Redis, gRPC, Kafka, and Clickhouse, building reliable systems at a massive scale.

You'll collaborate with security, network engineering, SRE, and product management to design scalable solutions, review peers' work, and mentor teammates while ensuring customer delight across deployments.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience at a technology company.
• Strong programming skills in Go, Rust, or C++.
• Experience building and operating distributed systems.
• Experience with Unix/Linux development and runtimes.
• Experience with monitoring, alerting, and debugging high-volume systems.
• Experience with PostgreSQL and Clickhouse.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain Cloudflare’s Load Balancing software.
• Participate in all stages of the software development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with security, network engineering, SRE, and product teams.
• Review peers’ work to ensure high-quality, maintainable code.
• Mentor teammates and work with support teams to delight customers.
• Debug complex systems and improve operational health.

Skills

Curiosity

Critical thinking

Go

Rust

C++

Distributed systems

Unix/Linux

Monitoring

Docker

Kubernetes

Prometheus

Grafana

Interpersonal skills

Tools

PostgreSQL

Clickhouse

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: Austin Texas

About Engineering at Cloudflare

Cloudflare’s Engineers build and operate the software that helps power 25+ million Internet properties and millions of businesses around the world. Across our engineering organizations, we have opportunities for high caliber, curious and empathetic people to take on big challenges and build some of the best skills in the industry. We’re looking for talented team members to help build high-growth products, help scale our expanding network, build tools to improve availability, performance, uptime, and response times, and make systems failure-resistant and ready-to-scale.

Cloudflare is a system spanning the globe, on a mission to make the Internet better, safer, and more powerful every day. As a Software Engineer at Cloudflare, you’ll work on the code that runs close to the end user, runs at a massive scale, and is deployed to 330+ cities around the world.

Role Summary

We are looking for a talented Systems Engineer to join the Load Balancing team. You will work on a range of microservices written mainly in Go. Technologies we use include Docker, Go, PostgreSQL, Redis, gRPC, Kafka, Clickhouse and the usual Unix/Linux tools and workflows. We strive to build reliable, fault-tolerant systems that can operate at Cloudflare’s scale. You will join a team of bright, hard-working, and supportive engineers who are passionate about their craft, and you will be comfortable operating in a fast-paced but sane work environment.

You can learn more about our product and the work our engineers do on our blog:

https://blog.cloudflare.com/eliminating-hardware-with-load-balancing-and-cloudflare-one/

https://blog.cloudflare.com/extending-local-traffic-management-load-balancing-to-layer-4-with-spectrum/

https://blog.cloudflare.com/load-balancing-monitor-groups-multi-service-health-checks-for-resilient/

Role Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain the software systems that comprise Cloudflare’s Load Balancing product.
• Participate in all stages of the software development lifecycle, from designing and documenting systems to writing code, automated tests, and monitoring production deployments.
• Collaborate with internal teams, including security, network engineering, SRE, and product management, to design scalable solutions to difficult technical problems.
• Review work from your peers throughout all stages of the development lifecycle to ensure high-quality, maintainable code.
• Mentor team members and work with support teams to ensure customer delight and bring out the best in everyone.
• Debug issues in complex systems and contribute to the maintenance and improvement of operational health.

Role Requirements

• First and foremost curiosity and critical thinking
• 5+ years of relevant professional experience with a technology company
• Strong programming skills in Go, Rust, C++, or a similar systems-level language
• Experience building and operating distributed systems
• Experience with modern Unix/Linux development and runtime environments
• Experience with monitoring, alerting and debugging high volume production systems
• Experience with databases (we use PostgreSQL and Clickhouse)
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools like Prometheus and Grafana.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, demonstrating empathy, teamwork and a sense of ownership.

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.

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.