Senior Systems Engineer, Workers AI

About this role

<div class="content-intro"><div><strong>About Us</strong></div> <div> <p>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. </p> <p>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.</p> </div></div><h3><strong>Available Locations: Austin, TX (Hybrid) </strong></h3> <h3 data-path-to-node="2">About the role</h3> <p data-path-to-node="3">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.</p> <p data-path-to-node="4">We're building an AI inference platform embedded in the fabric of the internet — something that doesn't exist yet — and this role puts you at the center of it. We're looking for high-agency systems engineers who are energized by foundational infrastructure problems and want to define how AI runs at the edge of the network.</p> <h3 data-path-to-node="6">Responsibilities</h3> <ul> <li data-path-to-node="7,0,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,0,0" data-index-in-node="0">Platform Architecture:</strong> Develop and maintain core components of the serverless inference platform to ensure high availability and scalability for Cloudflare users.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,1,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,1,0" data-index-in-node="0">Optimization & Performance:</strong> 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.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,2,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,2,0" data-index-in-node="0">System Reliability:</strong> Drive significant, measurable improvements in the platform's reliability and resilience by identifying and mitigating systemic risks.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,3,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,3,0" data-index-in-node="0">Observability:</strong> Expand and refine the observability stack (metrics, logging, tracing) and fine-tune alerts to proactively identify and resolve production issues.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,4,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,4,0" data-index-in-node="0">Technical Leadership:</strong> Lead complex, cross-functional technical projects from initial concept and design through final deployment and operationalization.</li> <li data-path-to-node="7,5,0"><strong data-path-to-node="7,5,0" data-index-in-node="0">Mentorship:</strong> Act as a mentor to junior engineers and actively contribute to cultivating a strong, collaborative engineering culture within the team.</li> </ul> <h3 data-path-to-node="9">Desirable skills, Knowledge & Experience</h3> <ul> <li data-path-to-node="10,0,0">Proven experience in systems engineering, with a primary focus on distributed, high-performance systems.</li> <li data-path-to-node="10,1,0">Expert proficiency in <strong data-path-to-node="10,1,0" data-index-in-node="22">Rust</strong> programming, particularly in an asynchronous environment.</li> <li data-path-to-node="10,2,0">Deep understanding and hands-on experience with relevant networking and application protocols (e.g., TCP, HTTP, WebSocket).</li> <li data-path-to-node="10,3,0">Solid experience with scaling and performance optimization techniques, including load balancing and caching in a distributed environment.</li> </ul> <h3…