Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

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. 

At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.

Available Locations: San Francisco, CA

About the Role

Cloudflare’s Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) operate at the intersection of product engineering and customer impact.

As an FDE, you will be embedded within one of Cloudflare’s most strategic global customers, working side-by-side with their engineering teams to build and deploy solutions using Cloudflare’s platform. Unlike traditional Solutions Architects or consultants, you will write production code, shape technical architecture, and directly influence how Cloudflare products are used at massive scale.

You will operate as a technical extension of both organizations - helping the customer ship faster while surfacing real-world product insights back to Cloudflare engineering.

This role is ideal for engineers who want to:

• Stay deeply technical
• Work on real production systems
• Influence product direction
• Build long-term partnerships with world-class engineering teams

Responsibilities

• Deep Technical Embedding: Serve as the dedicated, long-term technical partner within a strategic customer’s engineering organization, operating as a trusted extension of their team.
• Production-Level Engineering: Design, build, and deploy production-ready code and configurations directly into customer infrastructure using the Cloudflare platform.
• Technical Accountability: Own the account's technical success across the entire Cloudflare portfolio. Serve as the primary technical point of contact, with other Cloudflare technical resources taking direction from your technical strategy for the account.
• Operational Integration: Participate in customer engineering rituals, including daily standups, design reviews, and real-time incident response.
• Platform Advocacy & Adoption: Identify opportunities to accelerate the adoption of Cloudflare services, unlocking new capabilities across the customer’s tech stack.
• Platform Breadth & Depth: Deep technical competence in building production applications on a modern stack, combined with the willingness and ability to go deep on all Cloudflare product areas. From Workers to security, networking, and observability.
• Feedback Loop & Product Influence: Surface real-world edge cases and product gaps directly to Cloudflare’s Product and Engineering teams to influence the developer platform roadmap.
• Strategic Relationship Management: Establish and maintain trusted technical relationships with senior leadership (Staff+ engineers, Directors, and VPs).
• On-Site Presence: Maintain a regular on-site presence at customer locations to foster deep collaboration and cultural alignment.

Requirements

• Proven Engineering Pedigree: 5+ years of professional software engineering experience. You are a builder at heart, with a track record of delivering production-grade systems, not just advising on them.
• Production Ownership & Operational Maturity: You have owned mission-critical services with real-world users. You understand the gravity of on-call rotations, the urgency of incident response, and the architectural rigor required to maintain "five nines" uptime.
• Active Practitioner: You are currently in the IDE. You have a "ship-first" mentality and maintain a high velocity, staying current with modern frameworks, languages, and deployment patterns.
• Full-Stack Architectural Depth: Broad technical fluency across the entire stack—from frontend performance and backend logic to database optimization and distributed infrastructure.
• AI-Native Development: You have integrated AI-augmented workflows (e.g., Windsurf, OpenCode) into your daily development cycle to accelerate prototyping and delivery.
• Systems Design & Strategic Thinking: Ability to decompose complex business requirements into scalable, resilient technical architectures. You can visualize the "big picture" without losing sight of the implementation details.
• Cloud Ecosystem Fluency: Deep experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including an understanding of serverless, networking, and security primitives.
• High Agency & Navigating Ambiguity: You are a self-starter who thrives in "zero-to-one" environments. You don't wait for a ticket; you identify the problem and own the solution from end-to-end.
• Executive Presence: Comfortable engaging in high-stakes technical and strategic discussions with VP-level stakeholders, with the ability to translate complex engineering trade-offs into business impact.

Nice to Have

• Direct experience building on Cloudflare Workers, or the broader Cloudflare Developer Platform.
• Previous experience at a fast-paced startup or in a customer-facing engineering role where you operated directly within a partner’s codebase.
• A visible public profile, including open-source contributions, technical blogging, or speaking engagements at industry conferences.

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.

• For Bay Area based hires: Estimated annual salary of $216,000 - $297,000

Equity

This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare’s equity plan.

Benefits

Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family.  Our benefits programs can help you pay health care expenses, support caregiving, build capital for the future and make life a little easier and fun!  The below is a description of our benefits for employees in the United States, and benefits may vary for employees based outside the U.S.

Health & Welfare Benefits

• Medical/Rx Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Commuter Spending Accounts
• Fertility & Family Forming Benefits
• On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
• Global Travel Medical Insurance

Financial Benefits

• Short and Long Term Disability Insurance
• Life & Accident Insurance
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
• Employee Stock Participation Plan

Time Off

• Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave
• Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave

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: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries 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: In 2017, we created the 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. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.

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 hr@cloudflare.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.