Location: US Remote

About the Department

Cloudflare Research is involved with building the future of Cloudflare by tackling strategic projects that have a large impact on Cloudflare systems and the Internet at large. Team members independently drive greenfield projects, work closely with Cloudflare product and engineering teams on shared objectives, and build strong collaborations with both external organizations and other organizations within Cloudflare to achieve common goals.

Cloudflare Research embarks upon projects that help shape the future of the Internet at large, and the systems that drive it. We design, develop, and deploy these projects into Cloudflare systems to demonstrate their impact, and to share that knowledge with the wider standards and research communities -- often in collaboration with university or other industry labs. A sample of our recent high-profile works include Constellation AI, Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), Post Quantum Encryption, CAP, ZKP for browsers, and Addressing Agility. Our current research directions include applied cryptography, privacy, network protocols and architecture, scalable telemetry and performance evaluation, systems for AI, and general distributed systems optimization. We are open to researchers in all of these areas, and particularly solicit applications from researchers with backgrounds in Formal Methods, Formal Analysis, Distributed Cache and Storage Systems, and Systems for ML. Particular attention will be paid to candidates with a background in formal analysis and storage or network optimization.

More information about Cloudflare's approach to research can be found.

About the Role

Cloudflare Research is looking for a systems researcher who is eager to help define and pursue research in systems and formal analysis that Cloudflare is uniquely poised to build and benefit from, with attention to scalability, resiliency, observability, and dynamic adaptation. Researchers and engineers across the Research Teams investigate new ideas, build new technologies, inform and execute telemetry, engage with global communities, and even dive into existing codebases to make meaningful changes in production environments. Prioritization and planning are key elements as the nature of the team's research necessarily shifts between putting ideas into practice and onto paper, while ensuring rigorous evaluations of performance, correctness, or impact. The successful candidate will have a proven track record of success driving streams of investigation to completion.

General Requirements

• Demonstrated track record of design and follow-through on large-scale systems projects
• Must have a proven record of peer-reviewed research, standards, or equivalent in venues held by but not limited to ACM, USENIX, or IEEE, with publicly accessible paper artifacts where appropriate.
• Solid foundation in computer science, with specialization in distributed systems and one or more Cloudflare-relevant areas such as machine learning, storage, operating systems, networks, privacy, or telemetry.
• Proficiency in one or more the following languages - Go, Rust, Typescript, C and/or Lua

• Excel at planning, working independently and multi-functionally, leading execution across teams to meet commitments, and deliver with predictability
• Demonstrate a track record of strong communication and technical influence. You're as good as explaining "why" as you are "how."
• Experience implementing tools, processes, internal instrumentation, methodologies, and resolving blockages
• Comfortable working on teams/projects with tight deadlines and short release cycles

• Have completed a PhD or equivalent graduate research program in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related STEM field
• Familiarity with Kafka, Postgres, ClickHouse, Kubernetes, Prometheus, and tools such as Cloudflare's Workers platform
• Demonstrated excellence in broad-audience technical communication (e.g. highly cited blogs, textbooks)
• Strong connections with the broader scientific community (arXiv presence, program committees, etc.)