Senior Systems Engineer, Workers AI

You'll design and build the core infrastructure that powers AI inference across Cloudflare's global network — real-time voice, frontier open LLMs, and customer-deployed models running on a heterogeneous fleet of GPUs and next-generation accelerators in hundreds of cities worldwide. Working alongside AI/ML engineers, hardware partners, and Cloudflare product teams, you'll solve hard problems in distributed systems and high-performance computing: sub-second model cold starts, multi-accelerator workload scheduling, efficient KV cache management, and a model deployment platform serving both Cloudflare and customers bringing their own models.

• Platform Architecture: Develop and maintain core components of the serverless inference platform to ensure high availability and scalability for Cloudflare users.
• Optimization & Performance: Optimize the model scheduling system to significantly increase efficiency and resource utilization across our inference infrastructure, and implement improvements to request routing logic to reduce latency for end-users.
• System Reliability: Drive significant, measurable improvements in the platform's reliability and resilience by identifying and mitigating systemic risks.
• Observability: Expand and refine the observability stack (metrics, logging, tracing) and fine-tune alerts to proactively identify and resolve production issues.
• Technical Leadership: Lead complex, cross-functional technical projects from initial concept and design through final deployment and operationalization.
• Mentorship: Act as a mentor to junior engineers and actively contribute to cultivating a strong, collaborative engineering culture within the team.

• Proven experience in systems engineering, with a primary focus on distributed, high-performance systems.
• Expert proficiency in Rust programming, particularly in an asynchronous environment.
• Deep understanding and hands-on experience with relevant networking and application protocols (e.g., TCP, HTTP, WebSocket).
• Solid experience with scaling and performance optimization techniques, including load balancing and caching in a distributed environment.

• Demonstrable experience with container orchestration platforms, specifically Kubernetes and/or Nomad.
• Familiarity with the unique architectural challenges involved in large-scale inference serving (e.g., LLMs and diffusion models).

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location. For Bay Area based hires: Estimated annual salary of $194,000 - $266,000. For New York City, New Jersey, Washington, Washington DC, and California (excluding Bay Area) based hires: Estimated annual salary of $185,000 - $254,000. Equity: This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare’s equity plan.

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

Apply via the provided link. Note that applicants who progress to the offer stage may be asked to attend an in-person interview within one of the Cloudflare Offices or Cloudflare Hubs.