Hardware Systems Engineer

Available Locations: Austin, US
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 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 330 cities in 120+ 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 and components, as well as PDUs and network hardware. As a Hardware Systems Engineer, you will work with colleagues on the Engineering teams, Product and Performance teams, and Hardware Sourcing teams to design, benchmark and optimize Cloudflare's worldwide fleet of servers
What You'll Do

• Work with product teams at Cloudflare to gather product requirements for next generation of servers, and work with silicon vendors to assess performance and select the components (CPU, memory, disk, NIC, GPUs etc)
• Work with silicon partner as well as ODM partners to specify, design and determine the key performance indicators of Cloudflare's next generation of servers for the fleet
• Develop tools and benchmarks to analyze system performance and efficiency
• Collaborate with performance team and software teams to optimize software performance on the hardware
• Communicate your results and updates through blog posts and internal talks

Examples Of Desirable Skills, Knowledge And Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science
• Knowledge and experience with server hardware including CPU, memory & storage technology
• Extensive experience with compute server design, validation, performance benchmarking, debugging, and deployment into data center
• Extensive knowledge of CPU architectures, including both x86 and ARM
• Knowledge of performance optimization based on hardware / software codesign
• Extensive experience in testing, benchmarking, and/or simulating hardware performance and an understanding of no-stone-left-unturned experimentation
• Experience of Linux kernel development, or Linux driver development.
• Extensive experience with programming in bash, python and Linux task automation
• Extensive experience with software development tools such as Git, TeamCity and Jira
• Experience of observability and monitoring tools such as Prometheus and Grafana, as well as the ability to observe trends over time
• Excited to learn about the Cloudflare hardware and products used by 20% of all web sites
• Excited to learn how a diverse server fleet is managed at scale with tools such as traffic management, capacity planning and failover mechanisms
• Excited by the idea of optimizing complex distributed systems, discovering system bottlenecks and proposing solutions to solve in current system architecture or to inform future software/hardware development

Bonus Points

• Master's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Compute Science
• Experience of working with external vendors on server hardware qualification.
• Knowledge of Redfish, IPMI and server remote management protocols, and experience with firmware updates
• Knowledge and experience with server hardware including motherboard designs, chassis designs, and thermal designs
• Experience with compiler optimization
• Experience in a hyperscale cloud infrastructure role is also valuable
• Knowledge of XPU/accelerator architectures is a plus

Compensation
Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location and level.
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