At Cloudflare, we have our eyes set on an ambitious goal: to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers approximately 25 million 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 Research Team is involved with building the future of Cloudflare by tackling strategic projects that have a large impact on Cloudflare systems and the Internet at large. Our focus is on solving difficult problems in security, performance, and privacy at scale using cryptographic tools. We are launching new investigations in network architectures and protocols, distributed systems, and measurement. This involves systems engineering, open source software development, protocol design, implementation of primitives, with lots of performance evaluation alongside. We make cutting edge research contributions in-house, as well as in collaboration with academia, Internet standards organizations like the IETF, and more!
More information about Cloudflare's approach to research can be found here.
Research Internships and Responsibilities
Successful candidates will be matched to suitable software engineering projects related to applied cryptography, network architectures and protocols, or distributed systems. Research interns will work alongside experienced researchers and fellows to investigate new ideas and build novel technologies. Interns will have the opportunity to apply and develop their advanced skills to make meaningful contributions to Cloudflare. Cloudflare Research interns have opportunities to dive into and make changes to existing codebases, and collaborate closely with the Engineering organizations to achieve common goals.
Research Program Areas
Cloudflare research has four current program areas. We’re looking for interns with interest or expertise in one of these areas.
Network-layer privacy
This program is about reducing or eliminating metadata on the Internet that can be used to learn about user behavior online when viewed by an unauthorized party. This work helps upgrade Internet protocols so that metadata (hostnames -- via SNI, IP addresses, or fingerprintable data) can no longer be easily extracted from Internet packets. Example projects: Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), website fingerprinting protection, dynamic DNS and addressing agility, and connection coalescing.
Application-layer privacy
This program is about reducing or eliminating personal data at the application layer: applying innovative techniques based on splitting data between parties to make personal data superfluous or less identifiable so it isn’t needed in the delivery of powerful products and services both at Cloudflare and throughout the Internet ecosystem. Example projects: Cryptographic Attestation of Personhood, privacy-preserving analytics, Privacy Pass, and password-authenticated key exchange.
Internet and Network Measurement
This program is about measuring and mapping the components that are present on the Internet and how they interact with traffic. Cloudflare is among the most connected networks on the Internet. Work in this program measures the network to understand how it is evolving with an eye on helping improve availability, security, and performance. Example projects: BGP routing and security, IP address dynamics, denial-of-service, characterising security of online services.
Future-proofing the Internet
The Internet is evolving, both politically and technologically. This program is about building technologies and tools to anticipate the challenges that we anticipate when looking past the medium-term horizon. Example projects: deploying post-quantum cryptography through Cloudflare’s internal network, and building a geography-aware key management system.
General Intern Requirements
- An understanding of the way the Internet works at a protocol level, ideally with the ability to understand standards or specifications on paper and the way they work in practice.
- Evidence of open-source software contributions; alternatively contributions to standards development or peer-reviewed research
- Evidence of ability to work in multiple languages -- Go, Rust and Javascript are particularly desirable.
- Experience (and love) for debugging to ensure the system works in all cases.
- Experience with a continuous integration workflow, and use of source control (we use git)
- Strong systems level programming skills.
- Willing and eager to share knowledge, with the skills to do so.
- Have or able to obtain authorization to work in the country where the position will be located (currently USA, Canada, UK, EU, CH)
Additional Requirements
Knowledge or experience with at least one of the following:
- Applied cryptography and cryptographic protocols
- Computer networking protocols (TCP/IP, DNS, BGP, QUIC, etc.) and related algorithms
- Operating or distributed systems development
- Measurement for network and computer systems
Bonus Points:
- Proven track record of independently driving projects in a fast-paced environment
- Contributions to open-source projects, peer-reviewed research, standards organizations, or equivalent public-domain community
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: We equip politically and artistically important organizations and journalists 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: We created 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.
Path Forward Partnership: Since 2016, we have partnered with Path Forward, a nonprofit organization, to create 16-week positions for mid-career professionals who want to get back to the workplace after taking time off to care for a child, parent, or loved one.
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.
