Engineering Manager, 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. 

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! 

Available Locations: Austin, TX | New York, NY | Seattle, WA

About the Team

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.

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.

What you'll do

We are looking for an Engineering Manager to lead the Hyperdrive team. You will guide a group of talented systems engineers building the "connective tissue" between the edge and the world’s most popular databases. You will play an active part in shaping product features—such as adding support for new database protocols, improving caching logic, and expanding private networking capabilities via Cloudflare Tunnel.

You will ensure the team hits ambitious performance goals and reliability targets. You bring a passion for solving the "distributed data" problem and thrive in a fast-paced environment where you are building low-level infrastructure that scales to millions of requests per second. Most importantly, you have a track record of leading technical teams with empathy, clarity, and a focus on professional growth.

Examples of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

• Strong communications skills – Ability to translate complex systems architecture (like database wire protocols and connection states) into clear team goals.
• Distributed Systems Leadership – Experience leading and hiring teams that build high-availability, low-latency distributed services.
• Navigation of Ambiguity – Hyperdrive solves problems that are often unique to the edge; you are expected to find creative paths to delivery when "standard" solutions don't apply.
• Operational Excellence – Experience overseeing the execution, deployment, and maintenance of critical infrastructure with high predictability.
• Developer-Centric Mindset – Passion for building APIs and tools that developers love, ensuring that Hyperdrive remains easy to adopt and transparent in its magic.
• Technical Mentorship – A track record of hiring, onboarding, and developing engineers. You’re as good at explaining the “why” (business value) as you are the “how” (technical implementation).
• Systems Programming Background – At least 4 years of professional experience with Rust, Go, or C++. (Hyperdrive's core logic is heavily rooted in high-performance systems programming).
• Database Fundamentals – Solid understanding of how databases work under the hood, including connection lifecycles, transaction states, and wire protocols.

Bonus Points

• Deep Database Knowledge – Experience with PostgreSQL or MySQL internals, including experience with connection poolers (like PgBouncer) or proxy layers.
• Networking Expertise – Deep understanding of TCP/IP, TLS, and WebSockets (used in Hyperdrive’s Tunnel integration).
• Linux/Systems Performance – Experience debugging and optimizing failure modes in large-scale, Linux-based distributed environments.
• Serverless Ecosystem – Familiarity with the Cloudflare Workers ecosystem and the unique challenges of stateful connections in an ephemeral computing world.
• Open Source – Contributions to database drivers, ORMs, or networking libraries.

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location.

• For New York City, New Jersey, Washington, Washington DC, and California (excluding Bay Area) based hires: Estimated annual salary of $190,000 - $261,000

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

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 access to election information and voter registration. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.

1.1.1.1: We released 1.1.1.1 to help fix the foundation of the Internet by building a faster, more secure and privacy-centric public DNS resolver. This is available publicly for everyone to use - it is the first consumer-focused service Cloudflare has ever released. Here’s the deal - we don’t store client IP addresses never, ever. We will continue to abide by our privacy commitment and ensure that no user data is sold to advertisers or used to target consumers.

Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you!

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Please note that any offer of employment may be conditioned on your authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export laws without sponsorship for an export license.

Cloudflare is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and place great value in both diversity and inclusiveness.  All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to their, or any other person's, perceived or actual race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law. We are an AA/Veterans/Disabled Employer.

Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities.  Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job. Examples of reasonable accommodations include, but are not limited to, changing the application process, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.  If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact us via e-mail at hr@cloudflare.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.