Senior Response Engineer - Cloudflare Managed Defense Center (CMDC)

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.

• →Act as the technical lead and incident commander during high-impact, multi-vector security events, designing and deploying bespoke mitigation strategies when standard runbooks do not suffice.
• →Perform deep-dive forensic analysis into complex Layer 3/4 and Layer 7 traffic anomalies, identifying zero-day attack patterns, sophisticated bot networks, and novel evasion techniques.
• →Apply advanced mitigation strategies and filter malicious traffic using Cloudflare’s core security suite, including Magic Transit, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Advanced Rate Limiting.
• →Lead technical communications and incident bridge calls with enterprise C-level executives, principal network engineers, and security teams during critical events, clearly articulating root causes, impact assessments, and remediation paths.
• →Monitor and investigate proactive security alerts across internal telemetry systems to rapidly triage incoming events, assess blast radius, and validate threat severity.
• →Adhere to and champion strict customer SLAs for alert response times, event analysis, and clear executive reporting.
• →Mentor and elevate Tier 1 and Tier 2 engineers through structured shadowing, technical post-mortems, and internal training.
• →Partner with internal Engineering and Product teams to translate operational attack trends into prioritized platform enhancements, tool feedback, and automated detection logic.

• A minimum of 6–8 years of hands-on experience in a high-volume Security Operations Center (SOC), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), network engineering, or incident response environment dealing directly with live threat mitigation.
• Comprehensive knowledge of networking principles and internet infrastructure, including TCP/IP, UDP, ICMP, DNS, BGP routing mechanics, and edge network design.
• Deep expertise in Layer 7 protocols and web architectures (HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, HTTP/3, TLS handshakes/ciphers, reverse proxy models, and API security).
• Experience analyzing network traffic data for anomaly detection and designing, tuning, and executing advanced mitigation strategies against L3/L4 and L7 attacks, including bespoke countermeasures when standard playbooks are insufficient.
• Advanced proficiency in packet capture and network traffic analysis using tools such as tcpdump, Wireshark, or tshark to isolate anomalies and dissect malformed or novel payloads.
• Practical experience analyzing and mitigating security incidents using AI and machine learning tools, paired with the hands-on capability to build and integrate custom tooling that improves operational workflows, accelerates log telemetry analysis, and defends against AI-driven botnets and adversarial edge attacks.
• Proficiency in using the command line (Bash shell) alongside general system administration literacy across Linux, Mac, or Windows environments.
• Proven experience commanding incident bridges, making decisive risk-tradeoff decisions, and maintaining composure while managing enterprise stakeholders during high-pressure crises.

• Direct experience querying large-scale distributed logging and analytics systems using SQL, GraphQL, ClickHouse, or SIEM platforms (Splunk, Elastic, Sumo Logic).
• Hands-on experience defending against advanced persistent threats (APTs), credential stuffing, scraping botnets, or application-layer bypass attacks against major CDNs/WAFs.
• Relevant industry certifications, such as CISSP, CCNP/CCIE, or advanced GIAC credentials (e.g., GCIA, GCIH, GNFA).

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 released 1.1.1.1 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 actual race, 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 hr@cloudflare.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.