Hardware Systems Engineer

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. 

We realize people do not fit into neat boxes. We are looking for curious and empathetic individuals who are committed to developing themselves and learning new skills, and we are ready to help you do that. We cannot complete our mission without building a diverse and inclusive team. We hire the best people based on an evaluation of their potential and support them throughout their time at Cloudflare. Come join us! 

Available Locations: Austin, US, San Francisco, US, or Seattle, US. (Austin preferred)  

About The Department

Cloudflare’s Infrastructure group is responsible for building our global network. Our Hardware Engineering team helps research, develop, test, and deploy new equipment enabling 20% of the world’s internet traffic to be served smoothly. Deployed across 330 cities in 120+ countries, the hardware we select helps improve the security, reliability, and performance of the Internet.

About The Role

We need to make thoughtful infrastructure choices affecting a significant portion of the Internet. Hardware we work with includes servers and components, as well as PDUs and network hardware. As a Hardware Systems Engineer, you will work with colleagues on the Engineering teams, Product and Performance Optimization teams, and Hardware Sourcing teams to design, qualify and maintain Cloudflare’s worldwide fleet of servers

What You'll Do

• Work with product teams at Cloudfare to gather product requirements for next generation of servers, and work with silicon vendors to assess performance and select the components (CPU, memory, disk, NIC, GPUs etc) 
• Work with ODM partners to specify, design and determine the key performance indicators of Cloudflare’s next generation of servers for the fleet
• Qualify the server hardware across EVT/DVT/PVT phases and deploy in Cloudflare production environment
• Collaborate with the Site Reliability Engineering team to onboard and integrate the next generation of servers into provisioning tools and fleet management tools.
• Collaborate with performance team and software teams to optimize software performance on the hardware
• Work with cross-functional teams to deploy firmware updates, triage hardware problem reports, resolve hardware issues, maintain automation tools. 
• Communicate your results and updates through blog posts and internal talks

Examples Of Desirable Skills, Knowledge And Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science
• Extensive experience with compute design engineering, validation, performance benchmarking, debugging, and deployment used in the data center
• Knowledge of CPU architectures, preferably both x86 and ARM
• Knowledge and experience with server hardware including motherboard designs, CPU architecture, memory & storage technology
• Knowledge of performance benchmarking ; Previous experience in testing, measuring, and/or simulating hardware performance and an understanding of no-stone-left-unturned experimentation
• Knowledge of bash, python and basic Linux task automation
• Knowledge of Redfish, IPMI and server remote management protocols, and experience with firmware updates
• Curiosity and desire to learn about the Cloudflare hardware and products used by 20% of all web sites
• Desire to learn how a diverse server fleet is managed at scale with tools such as traffic management, capacity planning and failover mechanisms
• Desire to learn the tools Cloudflare uses to maintain and monitor our hardware

 Bonus Points

• Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Compute Science
• Experience of performance optimization based on hardware / software codesign
• Experience of kernel development, compiler optimization, or driver development.
• Experience of working with e