Forward Deployed Engineer, Professional Services (Application Security)

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. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.

Available Location: Sydney

About the Role

Cloudflare’s Forward Deployed Engineer, Professional Services provides customers with a dedicated, hands-on technical expert embedded directly within their environment. This is not a traditional support or purely advisory engagement-it is a staff-augmentation model where you act as an extension of the customer’s team, taking the lead in managing, optimizing, and evolving their Cloudflare solutions.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you are a recognized subject-matter expert in your specialization and a trusted advisor to both the customer and Cloudflare leadership. You will own the most complex, high-stakes customer engagements, and contribute to the evolution of Cloudflare's service methodologies and offerings. You operate with a high degree of autonomy, make architectural decisions that impact mission-critical infrastructure, and partner with executive stakeholders to align technical outcomes with business objectives.

This role is ideal for senior technologists who have a proven track record of owning end-to-end customer transformations, leading through influence, and scaling expertise across teams.

What You Will Do

Embed & Integrate

• Become a trusted, embedded member of the customer’s technical team, operating within their tools, processes, and change-management frameworks.
• Follow the customer’s change-management process for all hands-on modifications, ensuring risk mitigation and operational continuity.

Hands-On Execution

• Design, configure, and optimize Cloudflare solutions directly within the customer environment.
• Implement changes, build prototypes, develop automation scripts, and troubleshoot issues in real time.

Strategic Advisory & Architecture

• Provide proactive architectural guidance, roadmap alignment, and best-practice recommendations.
• Produce Solution Designs, HLDs, LLDs, databuilds, procedures, test plans, deployment plans, migration plans, as-builts, and other artifacts necessary for delivery and smooth handoff.

Workshops & Knowledge Transfer

• Lead technical workshops, knowledge-transfer sessions, and special-event preparation (e.g., product launches, traffic events, security drills, quarterly business reviews).
• Ensure continuity by documenting decisions, runbooks, and configurations in the customer’s collaborative workspace.

Customer Advocacy & Liaison

• Act as the voice of the customer within Cloudflare, surfacing product gaps, feature requests, and escalation items to Engineering, Support, and Product.
• Partner closely with the Account Executive, Solutions Engineer, Customer Success Manager, Delivery Leaders and other stakeholders to align on account strategy and expansion opportunities.

Experience & Skills

Core Requirements

15+ years of experience in a customer-facing technical role.

Recognized Expertise in one of the following focus areas with a proven track record of leading complex, enterprise-scale engagements:

• Applications - Advanced tuning of WAF, Bot Management, API Gateway, DDoS protection, Rate Limiting, and performance optimization for global web properties. Experience designing security architectures for large-scale, multi-zone deployments.
• Network - Hands-on management of Magic Transit, BYOIP, complex L3/L4 routing, DDoS resilience, and low-latency global connectivity design. Experience with network transformations and MPLS/SD-WAN migrations.
• Leadership & Mentorship - Demonstrated experience mentoring junior team members, leading technical workshops, and contributing to the development of service methodologies, best practices, and reusable assets.
• Strong Networking Foundation - Expert-level understanding of the OSI model, TCP/IP, TLS, DNS, and HTTP.
• Hands-On Technical Skills - Demonstrated ability to implement, configure, and troubleshoot complex solutions. Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform) and scripting (e.g., Python, JavaScript, Bash) is highly desirable.
• Project & Program Management - Ability to manage multiple competing priorities, work to deadlines, and deliver results in ambiguous or fast-moving environments. Experience scoping and estimating complex engagements.
• Communication & Executive Presence - Exceptional verbal and written communication skills. Ability to translate complex technical concepts for both technical and executive audience
• Regional Experience - Experience working with enterprise customers in APJC. Understanding of regional compliance requirements, business culture, and technical ecosystems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in heavily regulated industries (Public Sector, Financial Services, Healthcare) or complex legacy-migration environments.
• Relevant industry certifications: CISSP, CCIE, AWS, GCP, Azure certifications, or equivalent.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and enterprise change-management processes.
• Familiarity with Zero Trust / SASE - Securing distributed workforces with Access, Gateway, CASB, RBI, and DLP. Proven experience implementing Zero Trust architectures at enterprise scale.
• Prior experience with Cloudflare’s product suite and edge-network ecosystem.

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: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries 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: In 2017, we created the 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. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.

1.1.1.1: We released1.1.1.1 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!

Please note that applicants who progress to the offer stage of the interview process may be asked to attend an in-person interview within one of the Cloudflare Offices or Cloudflare Hubs.  More details about this will be available at that stage of the interview process.

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 actualrace, 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 [email protected] via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.