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Cloudflare is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join the Integrated Network Strategy team, which owns foundational infrastructure planning, network design, and capacity roadmaps for one of the world's largest networks spanning 337+ cities across 125+ countries.
In this role, you will lead the design, evolution, and operational excellence of Cloudflare's global network infrastructure. You will own foundational decisions about network growth, from capacity planning methodologies and hardware evolution strategies to architectural standards that inform infrastructure teams across the organization. You will work with talented engineers and architects to shape network architecture, strategies, and long-term roadmaps that keep Cloudflare ahead of unprecedented scale.
Key responsibilities include:
**Network Architecture & Design:** 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 and recommend major evolution initiatives.
**Capacity Planning & Systems Design:** 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 and actionable.
**Hardware & Network Evolution:** Drive the evolution of network hardware and platform strategies, evaluating new platforms, vendors, and architectures. Lead technical evaluations of emerging technologies including silicon, switching architectures, routing protocols, and optical transport. Work with procurement, supply chain, and engineering teams to transition the network to next-generation platforms.
**Next-Generation Planning & Research:** 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.
**Collaboration & Organizational Impact:** 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.
You will combine technical depth with strategic thinking and the ability to influence without direct authority. You excel at building extensible frameworks that allow teams to solve tomorrow's problems without rewiring today's foundation. You have a track record of taking on greenfield problems and turning them into repeatable systems and processes.
**Requirements:**
- 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
- Experience mentoring junior engineers or leading teams through major architectural transitions
- Comfortable working in a matrix environment with multiple stakeholders (product, operations, procurement, finance) and driving alignment
**Bonus qualifications:**
- Experience at a hyperscaler or large infrastructure platform (Meta, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.)
- Background designing and implementing network automation frameworks
- Experience with network telemetry, Netflow data analysis, and observability at scale
- Track record driving significant cost optimization through network design and peering strategy
- Experience with IPv6 deployment and evolution at scale
- Knowledge of SDN platforms, hardware abstractions, and vendor-agnostic network design
- Familiarity with Cloudflare's products, network, or competitive landscape
