Staff Network Architect: Global Infra & Capacity Strategy

Cloudflare, Inc.; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Cloudflare is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead the design, evolution, and operational excellence of our global network infrastructure. You will own foundational decisions about how our network grows: from capacity planning methodologies and hardware evolution strategies to architectural standards that inform infrastructure teams across the organization.

You will work with a team of passionate, talented engineers and architects that are building the systems powering the internet's most critical

Qualifications

• 10+ years designing, operating, or planning large-scale network infrastructure at hyperscale (or equivalent).
• Proven track record building greenfield network architectures and evolving them as business needs change.
• Deep, hands-on expertise with modern routing protocols (BGP, ISIS, RSVP-TE, QoS, traffic engineering).
• Strong experience with software-defined networking, overlay networks, and programmable forwarding.
• Expert-level understanding of network economics: cost drivers, capacity planning, peering strategy, and trade-offs between performance, redundancy, and capital efficiency.
• Track record automating complex network operations and building extensible frameworks that scale across large teams.
• Experience designing and implementing DDoS mitigation strategies, firewall policies, and network security at scale.
• Ability to design intent-based systems that reduce operational complexity while maintaining flexibility.
• Strong systems-level understanding across the full stack: from hardware platforms and protocols through software-defined networking to application-level routing decisions.
• Experience leading network design, planning, budgeting, and sourcing decisions for large deployments.
• Ability to think 3–5 years ahead while shipping solutions today.
• Proven ability to influence without direct authority; comfortable presenting technical recommendations to senior leadership and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong writing and documentation skills; able to articulate complex technical decisions and trade-offs clearly.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve the architecture of Cloudflare's global network, including core infrastructure patterns, interconnection strategies, and edge deployment models.
• Establish and maintain design standards that enable consistency, reliability, and defensibility across heterogeneous deployments.
• Lead architectural reviews; anticipate technical debt and recommend major evolution initiatives, working across team.
• Own the design and continuous improvement of capacity management processes and systems used across infrastructure teams.
• Develop methodologies for forecasting demand, modeling growth scenarios, and optimizing resource utilization.
• Build tools, dashboards, and automated systems that make capacity planning visible, transparent, and actionable.
• Drive the evolution of network hardware and platform strategies, evaluating new platforms, vendors, and architectures.
• Lead technical evaluations of emerging technologies (silicon, switching architectures, routing protocols, optical transport, etc.).
• Work with procurement, supply chain, and engineering teams to transition the network to next-generation platforms.
• Conceive and plan multi-year technical roadmaps for network infrastructure, anticipating growth patterns and industry dynamics.
• Conduct research into emerging infrastructure trends and translate insights into strategic recommendations.
• Lead architectural exploration and validation projects that de-risk future directions before large-scale commitment.
• Partner with infrastructure teams to translate architectural visions into operational realities.
• Work with finance and operations to understand cost implications and optimize infrastructure spend.
• Mentor and elevate the technical decision-making capability of engineering teams across the organization.

Skills

10+ years

Network design

Greenfield architectures

Routing protocols

Software-defined networking

Network economics

Automation

DDoS mitigation

Intent-based systems

Systems thinking

Leadership & mentoring

Influence without authority

Technical writing

Job description

Cloudflare is seeking a Staff Engineer to lead the design, evolution, and operational excellence of our global network infrastructure. You will own foundational decisions about how our network grows: from capacity planning methodologies and hardware evolution strategies to architectural standards that inform infrastructure teams across the organization.

You will work with a team of passionate, talented engineers and architects that are building the systems powering the internet's most critical