Data Center Deployment 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!

About the Team

In this role, you will be focused on the build out and expansion of our global network. You'll work closely with Cloudflare’s SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) team, Network Engineering team, Infrastructure Engineering team, Project Managers and with various vendors and partners (including hardware vendors, logistics, datacenter and network providers, and ISPs) to maintain and improve our global infrastructure, and to plan and aggressively execute on the expansion of our network. You will further be responsible for the development and implementation of consistent processes and visibility measurements for consistent and effective management of our infrastructure. This is a highly visible position that requires deep technical understanding of datacenter infrastructure, physical and logical networking, linux, and basic experience with data analysis and project management.

To be successful in this position, you should have excellent technical skills, communication skills, and be able to navigate a range of challenges and constraints (e.g. schedule adherence, time zones, and cultures). You will have the opportunity to (literally) build a faster, safer Internet for our millions of users and the billions of web surfers that visit their sites each month.

Other Responsibilities May Include

• Provisioning, monitoring and maintaining hardware, software, and network in new Cloudflare data centers.
• Creating documentation and managing remote contractors to complete datacenter installations and upgrades (rack and stack), including hardware manufacturers, datacenter and network providers, logistics partners and other service providers in support of our 335+ growing datacenter locations
• Aggressively seek opportunities to introduce cutting-edge technology and automation solutions that are effective, efficient and scalable in order to improve our ability to deploy and maintain our global infrastructure.
• Planning and implementing network and server installations, including in the areas of facility power (AC/DC), cooling, security/access, rack layout and cable management.
• Providing technical leadership and guidance during deployment activities.
• Creating and maintaining documentation, plans, SOP’s, MOP’s etc.
• Collaborating with internal teams (infrastructure engineering, network engineering and SRE) for day to day activities.
• Coordinating installation of cross-connects globally in support of physical network expansion.
• Assisting with the definition, documentation and implementation of consistent processes across all regions.
• Limited travel

Required Experience

• Minimum of 3 years of prior relevant experience in Data Center Operations, Site Reliability Engineering, Linux systems administration, Network Engineering, and/or DevOps experience
• Familiarity with day-to-day tasks and projects common in Data Center Operations.
• Experience with optical transport technologies such as CWDM/DWDM
• Configuration management tool experience like Saltstack, Chef, Puppet or Ansible
• Network hardware administration.
• Knowledge and exposure to Network Protocols, Topologies and Enterprise architecture.
• Experience writing network configuration and design documentation.
• Experience solving problems through automation.
• Ability to write scripts for internal tools.
• Experience running and improving operational processes in a rapidly changing environment.

Examples of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

• Bachelor’s degree, technical background in engineering, computer science, or MIS a plus.
• Direct experience executing on datacenter / infrastructure projects with many moving parts.
• Previous experience installing / maintaining datacenter (and other IT) infrastructure and DCIM tools.
• Experience running and improving operational processes in a rapidly changing environment.
• Strong understanding of BGP and anycast routing
• Professional level network certification(s) (JNCIP, CCNP, etc) or higher
• Good working knowledge of Juniper Junos, Cisco IOS, Cisco NX-OS and Arista EOS
• Load balancing and reverse proxies such as Nginx, Varnish, HAProxy, Apache
• Proficient in one or more programming languages and willing to learn new ones when required
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and interpersonal skills.
• Must be proactive with proven ability to learn fast and execute on multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Ability to manage MS excel and Google spreadsheets.
• Comfortable handling basic program management responsibilities (prioritization, planning, scheduling, status reporting) such as JIRA
• Experience managing remote contractors
• Must be a team player.

Bonus Points

• Multi-lingual; experience working with infrastructure in multiple countries.
• Experience with continuous / rapid deployment
• Experience working in a 24/7/365 mission-critical service environment
• Comfortable with remote “lights-out” and out-of-band access to data center resources
• Linux certifications.
• Knowledge of the OSI-model and experience isolating network, hardware and software issues.

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.