Customer Engineer AI/ Start Up's

Cloudflare•San Francisco, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Cloudflare is hiring a customer-facing technologist to support developer-first, digital-native startups and high-growth cloud-native businesses. The role works with engineering teams, technical founders, and CTOs to understand their goals, map their needs to the Cloudflare Developer Platform, and help them build new products and AI initiatives on Cloudflare. It combines technical discovery, solution design, product evangelism, and pre-sales support; it is not a software developer role requiring daily production coding. The Customer Engineer partners closely with sales from the beginning of the sales cycle, engaging in discovery calls, qualifying opportunities, and working directly with customer teams, including through Slack channels and working sessions. The role leads tailored technical demos, architecture discussions, and proof-of-concept builds, while developing technical champions and advising customers on best practices. It covers both acquisition of new digital-native accounts and expansion of existing accounts. The position requires deep familiarity with the Cloudflare Developer Platform and relevant areas such as serverless and edge application development, AI/GenAI patterns, networking, security, and cloud computing. The role may require up to 50% travel for customer meetings, conferences, industry events, and collaboration with Cloudflare teammates. The role is available in San Francisco, and candidates must be locally based or willing to relocate to the Bay Area. San Francisco hires have estimated annual OTE of $150,000–$220,000, consisting of base salary and commissions, and are eligible for Cloudflare’s equity plan.

Requirements

Previous experience as a Solutions Engineer or in another customer-facing technical role; experience with developer-led, cloud-native, or startup organizations is desirable.
Pre-sales or technical sales experience and comfort working in an agile, fast-moving environment.
Ability to lead technical discovery, uncover requirements, qualify fit, and distinguish customer needs from noise.
Credibility discussing architecture, APIs, platform design, and technical solutions with engineers.
Strong written, verbal, presentation, and executive communication skills, including the ability to communicate with developers, technical founders, and C-level stakeholders.
Ability to build deep technical relationships with engineers and technical founders and manage stakeholder relationships to build consensus.
Ability to work on multiple projects and activities concurrently, manage deadlines, prioritize competing demands, and work with urgency.
Highly driven, curious, team-oriented, and able to find creative solutions to problems.
Meaningful experience building web applications or contributing to existing web applications.
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant work experience.
Ability to travel up to 50% for customer meetings, conferences, industry events, and collaboration with Cloudflare teammates.
Understanding of the Cloudflare Developer Platform, including Workers, Durable Objects, Workers AI, R2, KV, D1, Vectorize, Queues, and Pages, or willingness to learn its expanding product suite.
Knowledge of HTTP technologies, including reverse proxy, WAF, CDN, forward proxy, secure web gateway, and serverless application development.
Knowledge of Internet security technologies, including DDoS mitigation, firewalls, TLS, VPN, and DLP.
Knowledge of networking technologies, including TCP, UDP, DNS, IPv4, IPv6, BGP routing, GRE, SD-WAN, MPLS, and Global Traffic Management.
Knowledge of zero-trust network access (ZTNA and SASE), identity management, and authentication concepts.
Knowledge of cloud computing technologies such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Some scripting or programming familiarity with one or more of JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Golang, or BASH, sufficient to read code, build a demo, and converse with engineers.
Ability to translate technical concepts and jargon for audiences ranging from systems engineers and front-end developers to technical founders and executives.
Ability and interest in continuously learning and sharing knowledge through internal and external blog posts, team demos, and product training sessions.

Nice To Haves

Experience selling to or working with developer-led, cloud-native, or startup organizations.
Familiarity with building or architecting applications on a serverless or edge platform.
Knowledge of AI/GenAI application patterns, including inference at the edge, RAG, vector databases, and how startups operationalize AI initiatives.
Understanding of regulatory requirements such as FedRAMP, GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, or ISO/IEC standards.
Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; the posting states this is not a strict requirement.

Responsibilities

Lead technical discovery in the cloud-developer vertical, understanding how customers build, what they are trying to ship, and where Cloudflare fits.
Join sales-led discovery calls early, help qualify opportunities, and stay engaged with customer teams through channels such as Slack and working sessions.
Identify customer initiatives and business problems, particularly in product development and AI, and map them to the Cloudflare platform.
Build technical relationships and champions within customer accounts, from developers and founding engineers through CTOs.
Develop and present tailored technical content, demos, and architecture discussions for developer audiences and senior technical leaders.
Lead demos and proof-of-concept or build activities for prospects and customers.
Evangelize the Cloudflare Developer Platform and make the case for building on Cloudflare.
Create and share professional technical content, including reference architectures, demos, blog posts, and other knowledge-sharing materials.
Represent Cloudflare at developer, community, technology, and industry events through thought leadership and technical expertise.
Apply in-depth vertical or domain expertise and advise customers on best practices.
Manage technical sales within accounts, including developing champion relationships, driving technical wins, and supporting technical validation.
Manage multiple projects and activities concurrently, prioritize competing demands, and work to deadlines.

Benefits

Medical/Rx insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Flexible spending accounts
Commuter spending accounts
Fertility and family-forming benefits
On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
Global travel medical insurance
Short- and long-term disability insurance
Life and accident insurance
401(k) retirement savings plan
Employee stock participation plan
Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave
Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave
Equity plan participation