Principal Partner 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: Miami FL, Atlanta GA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC (Southeast Territory) Role Overview The Partner Engineer (PE) is a high-impact, strategic technical sales leader responsible for end-to-end technical lifecycle and enablement of the assigned partners, managing both pre-sales and post-sales engineering activities. In this role, you will act as the single technical point of contact as the trusted advisory for your assigned partners, driving technical validation during the sales cycle, architecting their delivery readiness and ensuring ongoing Partner Success. The role focuses heavily on driving value-based solution selling to accelerate the adoption of Cloudflare platform with focus on Cloudflare One (SASE/SSE) and AI Infrastructure (Workers AI / AI Gateway). By cultivating deeply technical champions within the partner organization, aligning architectures to tangible business outcomes, optimizing post-sales delivery and building joint managed services offering, you will directly expand and influence the pipeline to maximize Partner-Influenced Opportunity (PIO) revenue. Key Responsibilities 1. Pre-Sales Engineering & Champion Building • Technical Alignment, Discovery & Enablement: Own the technical relationship with Partners to align on building joint Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies. Align, build, and accelerate partner technical capabilities, enabling them to lead deep technical discovery and architectural design to independently sell scalable solutions leveraging the Cloudflare Platform with a strong focus on AI and Cloudflare One (CF1). • Technical Account Plan Ownership: Own and drive the end-to-end Technical Account Plan (TAP) for assigned strategic partners. Act as the primary architect mapping partner business goals to technical execution milestones, ensuring continuous alignment on CF1 and AI adoption targets.Building Technical Champions: Identify, enable, and cultivate key technical advocates and "Champions" within the partner organization to scale Cloudflare expertise independently, generate Partner-Influenced Opportunities (PIO), and empower them to deliver high-value professional services around Zero Trust and AI application security.Driving PIO via Next-Gen Architectures: Collaborate with sales teams to proactively source, qualify, and expand PIO through strategic architectural alignment, focusing on migrating legacy network architectures to CF1 and integrating secure AI solutions.Deal Support & Qualification: Enable partners' technical validation, proof-of-concept (PoC), demo, pipeline generation, and pipeline acceleration capabilities. Identify joint pursuit accounts, facilitate strategic technical account planning, and deliver cutting-edge solution architecture sessions for Named Partners 2. Accelerate Services Delivery • ASD Partner Journey Ownership: Own the ASD partner journey to ensure partners possess the advanced capabilities required to deploy, manage, and support the Cloudflare platform and AI application workloads seamlessly. • Joint Services Offering Acceleration with strong focus on CF1 and A1 : Build and co-develop joint services catalogues with key partners, accelerating the creation and launch of their own Cloudflare-focused services offerings, managed CF1 SASE practices, and AI security assessments. • Service Monetization & Performance Metrics: Enable partners to embed CF1 and Workers AI capabilities into their own managed security portfolios to shorten time-to-market, protect client AI pipelines, and maximize profitability. Develop, manage, and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and improve the effectiveness of these partner service deliveries • Technical Account Management & Architectural Health: Act as the escalated technical point of contact to ensure long-term architectural health, utilizing telemetry and proactive design to move the partner relationship from reactive to strategics for Cloudflare. 3. Automation AI Agents & Continuous Innovation • Leverage Autonomous AI Tools: Champion the use of Cloudflare OS and AI tools (Agent PAT and Agent Echo) to automate standard, repeatable technical tasks, optimizing operational efficiency and freeing up bandwidth for high-touch, strategic partner engagements. • AI & CF1 Product Enhancement Feedback Loop: Engage partner champions in the Partner Technical Advisory Council (PTAC) to give them early access to beta software, capture raw product feedback, and drive joint co-innovation on CF1 features and emerging AI products. • Cross-Functional Enablement: Participate in continuous cross-training programs to maintain peak proficiency in both pre-sales scoping and post-sales service deployment across the entire Cloudflare One and AI ecosystem. Required Qualifications & Experience • 8+ years of technical, partner-facing experience (e.g., Systems Engineer, Solutions Architect, or Technical Account Manager) in cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, or networking. • Strong technical depth in Cloudflare One (CF1) or equivalent SASE/SSE architectures, Zero Trust, DNS, and application security, alongside hands-on familiarity with AI deployment, AI Gateway, LLM orchestration frameworks, or vector databases. • Proven track record of developing technical talent or building "champion" programs within partner organizations, specifically driving adoption of complex cloud networks and AI technologies. • Enterprise Architecture & Project Management: Deep understanding of enterprise IT, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud environment while managing complex projects with multiple stakeholders • Demonstrated ability to manage the technical lifecycle of a deal from initial pre-sales discovery and CF1/AI PIO generation through post-sale service delivery. • Strong communication skills with a track record of presenting complex CF1 architectures and AI-driven use cases to partner leadership and technical teams alike. • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. Compensation • Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location. • For SF, SJ, and Bay Area Metro based hires: Estimated annual salary of $244,000-336,000. • For Boston, California - Remote, Connecticut - Remote, DC Metro, Massachusetts - Remote, New Jersey - Remote, New York City, NY Metro, Remote - Washington, Washington (Kirkland), and Washington D.C. based hires: Estimated annual salary of $234,000-$321,000. • For Colorado - Remote, Illinois - Remote, Maryland - Remote, Minnesota - Remote, Nevada - Remote, New York - Remote, Rhode Island - Remote, and Vermont - Remote based hires: Estimated annual salary of $212,000-$292,000 • This role is eligible to earn incentive compensation under Cloudflare's Sales Compensation Plan. The estimated annual salary range includes the on-target incentive compensation that may be attained in this role under the Sales Compensation Plan • Application Deadline: December 10, 2026 • 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 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.