Vulnerability Defense Software Engineer, Cloudforce One
Hybrid · Austin, TX · Washington, DC · USD 150,000-206,000 / year · 5+ years experience · Hybrid · Posted Oct 2, 2026
At a glance
- Experience
- 5+ years experience
- Workplace
- Hybrid
- Location
- Hybrid · Austin, TX · Washington, DC
- Salary
- USD 150,000-206,000 / year
About Cloudflare
- 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 and Washington, D.C.
About the role
- The Vulnerability Defense Software Engineer joins Cloudforce One, Cloudflare's threat operations and research team, to build systems that identify and disrupt cyber threats.
- This role involves translating complex security requirements and investigative methods into scalable, high-performance applications that help security practitioners assess risk and prioritize issues.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, run, and scale distributed tools and services that translate security tradecraft into scalable, evidence-based systems and workflows.
- Partner with security practitioners to understand workflows, bottlenecks, and opportunities for automation.
- Improve system design and architecture to ensure stability, performance, and maintainability of internal and customer-facing services.
- Analyze, communicate, and help prioritize complex technical concepts across teams.
- Mentor and guide other developers in the team to build collective technical expertise and promote best practices for well-tested, modular, and reusable code.
Requirements
- At least 5 years of experience building large-scale software applications, preferably distributed systems.
- Prior experience writing production-ready code in Go and/or TypeScript.
- Working knowledge of cybersecurity concepts such as threat modeling, attack techniques, trust boundaries, exploitability, and defensive controls.
- Familiarity with incident response workflows, network containment, and remediation.
- Practical experience in vulnerability research/exploit development and translating findings into actionable mitigations.
- Experience with AI-assisted development and designing agentic AI workflows.
- Experience designing and integrating RESTful APIs and/or gRPC services.
- Knowledge of SQL and common relational database systems such as PostgreSQL.
- Ability to independently define and deliver solutions in ambiguous problem spaces.
- Excellent debugging, optimization, and well-tested coding skills.
Preferred qualifications
- Application security, security research, or security automation experience
- Deep understanding of DNS, TLS/SSL and HTTP
- Experience evaluating probabilistic systems
Benefits
- Medical/Rx, Dental, and Vision Insurance
- Flexible Spending Accounts and Commuter Spending Accounts
- Fertility & Family Forming Benefits
- On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
- Global Travel Medical Insurance
- Short and Long Term Disability Insurance
- Life & Accident Insurance
- 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
- Employee Stock Participation Plan
- Flexible paid time off and various leave programs
Workplace
- Hybrid role based in Austin, TX or Washington, DC.
- May require flexibility to be on-call outside of standard working hours.
- Applicants may be asked to attend an in-person interview at a Cloudflare office or hub.
Skills
- Go
- TypeScript
- Rust
- Kafka
- Redis
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- PostgreSQL
- RESTful APIs
- gRPC
- SQL
