Senior Customer Engineer, SLED

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.

At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up.

Available locations: San Francisco, Sacramento. This is a work-from-home role, but you should reside in one of the regions.

About the Role

You are the technical lynchpin through the entire sales cycle—pre-sales and account technical leadership. You will work closely with our Public Sector prospects and customers to educate, empower, and ensure their success on the Cloudflare platform. Your technical expertise in Cloudflare’s global distributed network and technology will allow you to find best-fit solutions for prospects, train and onboard new customers via video-conference or in person, create documentation, and support the long-term technology strategy of the customer.

As a Public Sector Solutions Engineer, you will need strong technical knowledge of both on-premise security and networking implementations and public cloud initiatives common to US Public Sector customers. You are the technical customer advocate within Cloudflare and will work closely with every team at Cloudflare, from Sales and Product, through to Engineering and Customer Support.

What We Look For

Our Solutions Engineers come from a wide range of backgrounds: financial consulting, engineering, software development, product management, customer support, and project delivery. We're serious about building a diverse team. When hiring, we look for diversity of experience combined with genuine curiosity for our technology. Ultimately, you are passionate about technology and have the ability to explain complex technical concepts in easy-to-understand terms. You are naturally curious, an avid builder who is not afraid to get your hands dirty, and appreciate the diversity of challenges in working with customers. You look forward to helping them realize the full promise of Cloudflare.

On the Solutions Engineering team, you will find a collaborative environment where everyone brings different strengths and jumps in to help each other.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical discussions and implementations to help generate new business, expand existing business, and keep customers happy.
• Qualify prospect and customer use cases, discover technical requirements, lead demonstrations, identify and design solutions, and collaborate on proofs-of-concept (PoCs).
• Advise existing customers on technical best practices, implementation of Cloudflare products and features, and provide strategic guidance as part of a dedicated account team.
• Engage primarily with SLED (State, Local, and Education) customers, requiring ~30-40% travel for meetings, conferences, and team collaboration.

Requirements

• Demonstrated understanding of internet technologies: OSI Model layers 1-7, Routing TCP/UDP, DNS (authoritative and recursive), HTTP(S), SSL/TLS.
• Comfort with on-premise infrastructure and networking configurations, including potential legacy systems or methodologies.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in a customer-facing sales or consulting role (doesn’t have to be in tech).
• Technical curiosity and passion: stay up-to-date with Cloudflare’s products and industry trends.
• Focus on learning, teaching, collaboration, mentorship, and growth—both personally and within the team.
• Strong project management, relationship-building, and emotional intelligence (EQ).

Desired Qualifications

• Understanding of firewalls (L3, L4, L7) and networking concepts (e.g., ACLs).
• Familiarity with command-line interfaces, RESTful APIs, and HTTP request/response analysis.
• Foundational understanding of AI, with a focus on empowering customers to adopt AI-driven capabilities.
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (not required).
• Graduate-level degrees in Computer Science, Engineering, or related fields (bonus, not required).
• Certifications: Azure/AWS/GCP Architect, etc. (bonus).

More About You

• Ability to translate technical concepts for diverse audiences (engineers, developers, IT managers, C-levels).
• Passion for continuous learning and teaching through blog posts, demos, and training sessions.
• Knack for problem-solving and identifying the right Cloudflare solutions for customer needs.
• Strong project management skills, including prioritization and meeting deadlines.

Compensation

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location. This role is eligible to earn incentive compensation under Cloudflare’s Sales Compensation Plan.

• San Francisco: Estimated annual salary of $231,000–$275,000+ OTE (Base + Commissions).
• Los Angeles: Estimated annual salary of $221,000–$267,000 OTE (Base + Commissions).

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.

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?

• 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: Since 2017, we’ve provided free protection and reliability for over 425 local government election websites in 33 states.
• 1.1.1.1: A faster, more secure, and privacy-centric public DNS resolver available to everyone, with no storage of client IP addresses.

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