Research Engineer Intern (Fall 2026)

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 have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request, resulting in significant performance improvements 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 value candidates who spot "normalized" problems and use AI-native curiosity to create solutions with the latest tools. Our culture thrives on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster and improve continuously, ensuring every enhancement is shared across the team. If you prioritize curiosity over bureaucracy and see AI as a partner in solving tough problems, you’ll fit right in.

About the Department

Cloudflare’s Research Team pursues strategic projects that impact Cloudflare systems and the Internet at large. Our focus is on solving difficult problems to connect and protect users, applications, and data, while making the Internet more resilient, efficient, and transparent. We explore open problems at the boundaries of scalable computing, with a focus on security, privacy, AI/ML, and performance analysis. The team collaborates with academia, Internet standards organizations like the IETF, and contributes cutting-edge research in applied cryptography, privacy, network architectures, distributed systems, machine learning for systems, and more. We seek interns who can augment our expertise or bring new ideas via concrete proposals that improve Cloudflare or the broader Internet ecosystem.

Responsibilities

Cloudflare's Research Team solves difficult problems in security, privacy, and systems at scale. This involves engineering, data analysis, open-source software development, protocol design, and implementation of primitives, with extensive measurement. Successful candidates will be matched to projects in ongoing research directions, particularly in:

• AI
• Distributed Systems
• Privacy
• Trusted Execution Environments

Interns will help maintain the integrity of the Internet, its systems, and its applications. Areas of investigation include advanced cryptography, hardware isolation, balancing user privacy with identity, network observability, and applications of formal methods at scale. We also explore how AI impacts globally distributed systems and the wider Internet.

Requirements

• Evidence of tackling hard or open-ended problems
• Proven track record of peer-reviewed research, open-source contributions, or standards development commensurate with your level of training (students at all levels are welcome)
• Experience clearly communicating research ideas through papers, pre-prints, standards documents, blogs, or similar media
• Ability to work in a systems-level programming language (e.g., Rust, C, Go)
• Passion for debugging and ensuring system reliability
• Familiarity with continuous integration workflows and source control systems (e.g., GitLab, GitHub)
• Willingness and eagerness to share knowledge effectively

Skills

Knowledge or experience with at least one of the following:

• Computer networking protocols (TCP/IP, DNS, BGP, QUIC, etc.) and related algorithms
• Machine learning analysis, ideally in systems or network optimization
• Authentication protocols, applied cryptography, PKI, and SSL/TLS
• Operating or distributed systems analysis or development
• Measurement for network and computer systems
• Proficiency in a scripting language, such as Python

• Bonus: Proven track record of independently driving projects in fast-paced environments
• Bonus: Experience working in groups or with multiple stakeholders
• Bonus: Ability to work fluently across multiple programming languages

Schedule

• 12-week fall internship
• In-office 3-4 days a week in Austin, TX

Benefits

Cloudflare is a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company with a soul. Our mission includes protecting the free and open Internet through initiatives like:

• Project Galileo: Since 2014, we’ve equipped over 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries with tools to defend against censorship attacks—at no cost.
• Athenian Project: Created in 2017 to provide state and local governments with free, high-level protection and reliability for election information and voter registration. We’ve supported over 425 local government election websites across 33 states.
• 1.1.1.1: A faster, more secure, and privacy-centric public DNS resolver available to everyone. We don’t store client IP addresses and ensure no user data is sold to advertisers.

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