Lead Vulnerability Management Engineer

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 Locations:  Austin, TX

About the role

Reporting to the Director of Vulnerability Management, the Lead Vulnerability Management Engineer will serve as the technical authority for the program, focusing on the architecture, systems design, and long-term technology strategy for Cloudflare's vulnerability management capabilities. You will lead the evaluation and integration of advanced security technologies and systems across global infrastructure and cloud environments. As a senior technical lead, you will work closely with Engineering, Infrastructure, and Product teams to architect scalable remediation workflows and drive effective risk reduction. A key focus of this role is leveraging emerging technologies, including AI, to automate the vulnerability lifecycle and enhance operational efficiency. We are looking for a highly technical, proactive leader capable of designing complex integrations and managing large-scale remediation initiatives.

This role may require flexibility to be on-call outside of standard working hours to address technical issues as needed.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical lead for the Vulnerability Management team, providing architectural guidance and mentoring team members on complex technical challenges.
• Lead the architecture, systems design, technology evaluation, and systems integration for the global VM program, ensuring tooling is effectively embedded across the technology stack.
• Oversee and conduct advanced vulnerability scanning, performing in-depth validation of findings to verify accuracy, filter false positives, and lead the triage and prioritization of critical risks.
• Collaborate closely with technology owners and establish strong, trust-based relationships with engineering teams to drive the remediation or mitigation of complex vulnerabilities.
• Strategically manage and track the remediation backlog, maintaining a high-level view of risk reduction progress and reporting on systemic security trends.
• Design and implement AI-driven solutions to manage the vulnerability lifecycle and automate repetitive operational tasks within the vulnerability management domain.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of global vulnerability management standards, procedures, and playbooks.
• Act as the primary technical liaison for the GRC team, translating complex technical vulnerabilities and mitigations into clear compliance context to support continuous readiness for audits (e.g., SOC-2, PCI-DSS, FedRAMP).
• Own the technical reporting and evidence generation process for internal and external audits, ensuring scanning cadences and remediation workflows consistently meet or exceed compliance baselines.
• Interpret evolving regulatory and compliance requirements into actionable technical scanning policies, ensuring newly mandated checks are quickly integrated into the active scanning program

Desirable Skills, Knowledge, and Experience:

• Solid understanding of modern security frameworks (e.g., SOC-2, NIST, PCI) and their application in enterprise environments.
• 5+ years of Vulnerability Management experience, with a proven track record in a senior or lead technical capacity.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, or security certifications in a related field.
• Strong communication (written and verbal) and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with technical and non-technical teams.
• A strong understanding of vulnerability risk scoring (e.g., CVSS, EPSS) and how to apply these risk assessment methodologies in a business context to support remediation.
• Hands-on experience with vulnerability scanning platforms (e.g., Qualys, Nessus, Rapid7 InsightVM).
• Strong analytical skills to identify patterns in data and distinguish between theoretical risk and actual exploitability.
• Demonstrated experience using AI to develop and manage complex workflows and applications.
• Proven experience supporting GRC or external audit cycles (e.g., PCI-DSS, SOC-2, ISO 27001) by providing technical evidence, explaining compensating controls, or articulating risk-acceptance justifications.
• The ability to translate high-level compliance policies and regulatory requirements into precise, technical vulnerability scanning configurations and remediation SLAs.

Bonus points:

• Experience with scripting languages (e.g., Python) for automation.
• Experience with specific AI-development tooling such as Opencode or Windsurf.
• Proficiency in using ticketing tools like JIRA for managing tickets and tasks.
• Hands on experience with Infrastructure pentesting tools.

Equity

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.  Our benefits programs can help you pay health care expenses, support caregiving, build capital for the future and make life a little easier and fun!  The below is a description of our benefits for employees in the United States, and benefits may vary for employees based outside the U.S.

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?

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.