System Engineer, Cloudflare Hyperdrive

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 - Austin, US About the Role The Cloudflare Hyperdrive team builds the technology that makes regional databases feel like they are global. Hyperdrive is a core piece of the Cloudflare Developer Platform that accelerates database queries from Cloudflare Workers by pooling connections and caching data at the edge. By eliminating the massive latency overhead of TCP, TLS, and database-specific handshakes, Hyperdrive allows developers to use the databases they already know and love—like PostgreSQL and MySQL—without the "cold start" performance penalties typically associated with serverless environments. Responsibilities Hyperdrive is integrated directly into the Cloudflare global network and features: - Global Connection Pooling: Maintains "warm" connections to origin databases across the globe, reducing connection times by up to 90%. - Intelligent Query Caching: Automatically caches frequently run read queries as close to the user as possible. - Protocol-Aware Proxying: Features custom-built implementations of database wire protocols (PostgreSQL and MySQL) to parse and optimize traffic in real-time. - Seamless Integration: Works with existing ORMs and drivers, providing a simple connection string that "just works" for developers. - The team is geographically distributed across North America. - You will own your code from inception to release, delivering solutions at all layers of the software stack to empower Cloudflare customers. On any given day, you might write a design document that outlines how you plan to solve a specific problem, or fix a bug in how our user experience renders. You can expect to interact with a variety of languages and technologies including, but not limited to Rust, Go, C++, Typescript. Desirable Skills, Knowledge, and Experience - You have 4+ years of professional experience with Rust, Go, or C++. You understand how to write code that respects CPU and memory constraints. - You are comfortable with the Linux networking stack. You know your way around TCP/IP, TLS, and WebSockets. - You don’t just use databases; you understand how they work. You’re familiar with connection lifecycles, transaction states, and wire protocols. - You enjoy the challenge of debugging complex, distributed systems and building for "five nines" reliability. Bonus Points - Experience with PgBouncer, ProxySQL, or custom database middleware. - Familiarity with the Cloudflare Workers ecosystem and the unique stateful connection challenges of ephemeral computing. - You’ve contributed to database drivers, ORMs, or low-level networking libraries. - Experience using eBPF, perf, or other profiling tools to find and kill bottlenecks. 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 acc

4+ years of professional experience with Rust, Go, or C++. Comfortable with the Linux networking stack (TCP/IP, TLS, WebSockets). Understands how databases work, including connection lifecycles, transaction states, and wire protocols. Enjoys debugging complex distributed systems and building for high reliability ("five nines"). Bonus points for PgBouncer, ProxySQL, or custom database middleware; familiarity with the Cloudflare Workers ecosystem and stateful connection challenges of ephemeral computing; contributions to database drivers, ORMs, or low-level networking libraries; experience using eBPF, perf, or other profiling tools to identify bottlenecks.