Distributed Systems Engineer – Data Platform, Delivery, Database, Retrieval

Cloudflare

full-time

Posted on: 9/22/2025

Origin: • 🇺🇸 United States • Colorado, District of Columbia

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Mid-LevelSenior

Distributed SystemsDockerGoGrafanaGraphQLKafkaKubernetesLinuxPrometheusSaltStackSQLTerraform

About the role

Design, develop, and maintain scalable and reliable distributed systems across the entire data lifecycle.
Build and operate distributed data delivery pipeline for high-throughput, low-latency ingestion, processing, and routing of massive volumes of data.
Contribute to the analytical database platform (ClickHouse) to extend functionality and performance and scale database clusters.
Develop and enhance customer-facing GraphQL APIs, log delivery, and alerting solutions focusing on performance, reliability, and user experience.
Identify and remove bottlenecks across data platforms, from streamlining data ingestion to optimizing query performance.
Collaborate with other teams across Cloudflare to understand data needs and build solutions that empower data-driven decisions.
Collaborate with the ClickHouse open-source community and participate in development of next-generation data platforms, researching and evaluating new technologies.

3+ years of experience working in software development covering distributed systems and databases.
Strong programming skills (Golang is preferable).
Hands-on experience with modern observability stacks, including Prometheus and Grafana, and a strong understanding of handling high-cardinality metrics at scale.
Strong knowledge of SQL and database internals, including experience with database design, optimisation, and performance tuning.
A solid foundation in computer science, including algorithms, data structures, distributed systems, and concurrency.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a willingness to debug, troubleshoot, and learn about complex problems at high scale.
Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and communicate effectively with other teams across Cloudflare.
Experience with ClickHouse is a plus.
Experience with data streaming technologies (e.g., Kafka, Flink) is a plus.
Experience developing and scaling APIs, particularly GraphQL, is a plus.
Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools like SALT or Terraform is a plus.
Experience with Linux container technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes, is a plus.
Flexibility to be on-call outside of standard working hours to address technical issues as needed.