# Senior Systems Engineer, Cloudflare Tunnel

**Company:** [Cloudflare](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/cloudflare)
**Location:** Austin, TX
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Go, Rust, C++, Kubernetes, Docker, Prometheus, Grafana, Linux, Networking, Microservices, REST APIs, SQL, NoSQL
**Posted:** 2026-07-22

> Senior Systems Engineer leading architecture and implementation of Cloudflare Tunnel, a secure connectivity product. Requires 5+ years building secure distributed systems, strong systems programming (Go/Rust/C++), networking, Kubernetes/Docker, and cross-functional collaboration.

## Job Description

## Role Responsibilities
- Lead the architecture and implementation of complex software systems that comprise Cloudflare Tunnel, including the cross-platform, open-source client and high-performance edge services.
- Participate in all stages of the software development lifecycle, from designing and documenting systems to writing code, automated tests, and monitoring production deployments.
- Strategically influence and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, including security, network engineering, SRE, and product management, to design and scale technical solutions.
- Review work from your peers throughout all stages of the development lifecycle to ensure high-quality, maintainable code.
- Foster a culture of technical excellence through mentorship, proactive code reviews, and establishing engineering standards across the team to ensure high-quality, maintainable code.
- Debug issues in complex systems and contribute to the maintenance and improvement of operational health.
- Drive the long-term technical roadmap and identify opportunities for system-wide improvements, ensuring our architecture remains resilient as we scale.
- Work with a wide range of technologies and programming languages, including Go, Rust, and Typescript, as well as various databases (SQL and No-SQL), Docker, and Kubernetes.

## Role Requirements
- 5+ years of experience in backend software development with a focus on building secure and highly available distributed systems.
- Strong programming skills in Go, Rust, C++, or a similar systems-level language.
- Knowledge of modern Unix/Linux development and runtime environments.
- Grasp of networking protocols in Layers 3-7 of the OSI Model and experience with network programming.
- Familiarity with microservices and APIs, including RESTful design.
- Basic understanding of software security and encryption principles.
- Ability to debug and troubleshoot issues in complex distributed systems.
- Experience with monitoring and logging tools like Prometheus and Grafana.
- Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, demonstrating empathy, teamwork and a sense of ownership.

## Nice-to-Haves
- Experience with Typescript.
- Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases.

## Similar roles

- [Senior Backend Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/959c6e37-9bcf-45a4-a9f3-1988998b456f) - ClickUp - Remote - $160k – $210k/yr
- [Senior Software Engineer, Compute (Temporal Cloud)](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f732077a-69e7-4500-b010-cbcc2583e267) - Temporal - Remote - $176k – $238k/yr
- [Senior Distributed Systems Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/833604b1-4502-40bb-81dd-92c16fc73051) - Cloudflare - Austin, TX
- [Senior Backend Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f2645464-fc1c-4437-8e36-e7de954d0ca6) - Quidient - Columbia, MD - $100k – $120k/yr
- [Sr. Software Engineer, Platform](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/b5cf1025-852e-4974-b0dc-a684d7603c36) - Storable - Remote - $120k – $150k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/8325da30-77a5-4075-90ba-743b79039f28
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/8325da30-77a5-4075-90ba-743b79039f28