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

Hybrid: Amsterdam, Lisbon, London, Munich, Paris

Remote: France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, UK

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 285 cities in 100+ 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, routers, switches, optical equipment, power distribution units, cables, optics, and more. As a Hardware Systems Engineer, you will work with colleagues on the Hardware Engineering, Product teams, and Hardware Sourcing teams to troubleshoot and maintain Cloudflare’s worldwide fleet of storage and compute servers.

What you'll do

Develop and maintain automation tools to update firmware on servers and components in Cloudflare’s fleet

Work with software teams to validate bug fixes and performance of new firmware revisions

Test and deploy firmware updates to the fleet, monitoring the progress of the rollout for compliance and reliability

Work with server and component vendors to obtain, debug, and maintain the latest updates

Work with our Site Reliability Engineering teams to triage bug reports

Support our Data Centre Engineering teams in resolving hardware issues

Communicate your results and updates through blog posts, internal talks, and tickets

Examples of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science

Desire to learn about the Cloudflare hardware used by almost 20% of all web sites

Desire to learn how a diverse server fleet is managed at scale

Desire to learn the tools Cloudflare uses to maintain and monitor our hardware

Knowledge of PXE booting

Knowledge of configuration management, in particular we use salt to manage our fleet

Knowledge of Redfish, IPMI and server remote management protocols

Knowledge of running production mission critical systems

Bonus Points

Familiarity with server hardware architecture

Knowledge of debugging server hardware faults and the ability to engage with our sourcing team and vendors to improve quality

Experience of managing large fleets comprising of thousands of servers

Experience of observability and monitoring tools such as Prometheus and Grafana, and the ability to observe trends over time

Experience scripting and programming, in particular python and bash

Experience with software development tools and processes such as git, Bitbucket and TeamCity and Jira

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: We equip politically and artistically important organizations and journalists 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: We created 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.

Path Forward Partnership: Since 2016, we have partnered with Path Forward, a nonprofit organization, to create 16-week positions for mid-career professionals who want to get back to the workplace after taking time off to care for a child, parent, or loved one.

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.

Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you!

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 or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.