We view internships as a vital pipeline for talent and a source of new energy and ideas. The number of our intern goal, a nod to our 1.1.1.1 public DNS resolver, is intentional. It represents our deep technical roots and our focus on building foundational infrastructure for the Internet. Now, we stand at the cusp of a new technological revolution: the age of AI.

To win in this new era, we can’t just rely on established methods. We need new ways of thinking, unconstrained by the "way things have always been done." That’s why this significantly increased class of interns will have a special focus: to ramp up the creative and widespread application of AI with a fresh approach.

We want this group to challenge our assumptions. They will be tasked with looking at our customers’ needs, our products and features, our network, and our operations to find novel ways to utilize AI. How can AI make our network even smarter? How can it help our customers be more secure and efficient? How can it transform our own business processes? We believe that by empowering a large, diverse cohort of bright minds who have grown up as digital and now AI natives, we will unlock innovations we haven’t even imagined yet.

Like you, we have seen numerous reports that more and more firms are capping their total headcount in favor of leaning on more AI tools, leading to downsizing their intern and new-graduate hiring. This is resulting in increased sidelining of new college graduates. But we think this misreads the moment completely, so we’re heading in the opposite direction. 

While we are excited about what AI tools can help do, we have a different philosophy about their role. AI tools make great team members even better, and allow firms to set more ambitious goals. They are not replacements for new hires — but ways to multiply how new hires can contribute to a team.

The next phase of Cloudflare’s success will be driven by considerable change in almost everything we do. And although we have an amazing team, we are humble enough to realize that we don’t possess everything we need to envision and implement that radical change. We need the innovation and fresh approach of a talented new generation of leaders. And we can’t press “pause” on bringing aboard that talent. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve made a counter-cultural commitment to interns. Back in the 2020, as the world faced unprecedented uncertainty, many companies made the difficult decision to scale back or cancel their internship programs. We went in the opposite direction. Believing that investing in talent was more critical than ever, we doubled the size of our intern class. We knew that these students represented the future, and abandoning them was not an option. That decision reinforced our culture of long-term thinking and our responsibility to foster emerging talent, especially during the toughest of times. And we’ve benefitted from it — some of our most promising young employees emerged from this batch.

Interns at Cloudflare do real, meaningful work — they ship. They join active teams, and are expected to contribute to the problems that we solve everyday. Our interns don’t merely get a feel for the place and fetch coffee. This isn’t a “test drive.” We want every member of our intern program to take ownership of and conclude their time being able to point to a concrete deliverable that solved a real customer or internal problem at Cloudflare. 

From day one, interns are embedded in teams across the company — from engineering and product to marketing, legal, and finance. They work alongside seasoned experts on critical projects, contributing code that ships to millions, launching marketing campaigns, and helping to shape the policies that govern the Internet. Our goal is not just to provide an internship experience; it's to provide the foundation for a career. We are committed to training the people who will one day lead our company, our industry, and the future of the Internet.

The challenges we address will vary by intern and by team. You can review examples of intern projects from last year in this post here and real, dedicated, announcements from interns who launched new technologies here and here. Some of our interns operate as if they were just one more engineer or staff member on an existing team, helping contribute to its mission. Others are tasked with more exploratory projects where we ask them to go research and prototype new ideas.

Aside from impactful project work, our internship program offers a deep dive into our culture, while providing interns with practical experience and leadership skills. They'll build a valuable professional network, from engaging in social events and coffee chats to gaining direct access to executives through exclusive Q&A sessions. Every intern is paired with a dedicated mentor, and they'll get the chance to present their final work to the entire company. By the end of the program, interns will not only have enhanced their skills but also built lasting relationships to benefit their future careers.

We are looking for talented, curious, empathetic, and hard working team members who are inspired by our mission to help build a better Internet. Come with the attitude to learn, and we will handle the rest. We do not expect interns to be immediate experts in the fields they are joining. The Internet is full of enough jokes about companies posting a job for an internship and asking for ten years of work experience.

We do try to match opportunities with the applicant’s study areas and relevant skills. We want to equip our interns for success and prefer, for example, finding software engineering opportunities for computer science students or accounting opportunities for finance majors. Each internship role posted will specify any specific preferences we have for areas of study. We recognize that many students have robust portfolios, GitHub projects, or open-source contributions. We'll optimize our matching process to connect you with a relevant team where you can immediately apply your skills and elevate your work.

Thousands of candidates apply for our internships each year. We expect this expansion to increase that level of interest significantly. To help identify the kinds of builders we want to recruit, we are going to fast track engineering and other candidates who complete an assignment to build a type of AI-powered application on Cloudflare (more details on that below).

As part of this program, we will only be hiring interns who can be present multiple days each week in one of our hub offices (generally 3-4 days depending on the team). Cloudflare has adopted a hybrid approach to work centered in “hub” locations around the world. The various hybrid approaches adopted by different teams are based on experimentation and their unique functions. For interns, we think it is important for new and early career team members here for a brief tenure to connect with each other as well as more senior leaders in our organization. We believe that mentorship and coaching is best done in person. 

We expect to post internship opportunities in the following Cloudflare office locations:

• Austin, USA

• New York City, USA

• San Francisco, USA

• Bengaluru, India

• Lisbon, Portugal

• London, UK

Our internships generally last for 12 weeks. While we plan to prioritize summer internships, we expect to hire significant numbers of interns in the spring and fall of 2026 as well.

Summer internships give students an opportunity to get experience without interrupting a school semester. The seasonal approach also makes it possible for us to create cohorts of interns who support each other on projects. That said, we know that education has changed a bit since we were in school. An increasing number of universities have developed programs for students to work with companies as part of a normal school semester, and others are more flexible in their approach to letting students choose to reduce hours or take a semester away from classwork to support an internship. 

We pay our interns. This means a competitive rate that is generally akin to the prorated salary of an entry-level position. And if you have to relocate temporarily to a city where we have an office, we will give you a stipend to support your travel and housing needs. Since we expect interns at Cloudflare to contribute immediately to real problem solving, it’s only fair to pay them accordingly. 

And we believe it's incredibly important to pay interns. Many long-term employment opportunities arise through internship programs, so it's unfair to limit those programs to those who can afford to relocate and work full time for little or no pay. 

1. Keep an eye on our career site, and specifically our internship opportunities listed here. We will start posting more internship opportunities for 2026 starting on October 15th. 

2. The intern opportunities page will link to our internship application portal that will streamline the application process. We plan to review applications in batches until all positions are filled. Our interview process will take 3-4 weeks.

3. Want a leg up? For the Software Engineering internship, we plan to fast track review of candidates who complete an assignment to build a type of AI-powered application on Cloudflare. Submit directly with your application.

We look forward to hearing from you.

In EMEA, that mission has special significance. The region is a patchwork of diverse markets, industries, and regulatory environments. It demands a partner-centric approach, one that empowers businesses of all sizes to harness Cloudflare’s comprehensive connectivity cloud platform to protect, connect, and accelerate their operations. That’s why I joined Cloudflare as VP of EMEA Partnerships.

Every great company has an inflection point, a moment when the market, the strategy, and the execution align to create unstoppable momentum. Cloudflare is at that moment now.

With record revenue growth, increasing traction among large customers, and an expanding suite of Zero Trust, AI, and network security solutions, Cloudflare is emerging as the partner of choice for enterprises and service providers across EMEA.

But what excites me most is the people, the opportunity to build a team in EMEA that is world-class in its expertise, relentless in its execution, and passionate about making an impact.

In my career, I’ve seen firsthand how the right partnerships can propel companies to new heights. I’ve led strategic alliances, built global partner ecosystems, and driven channel transformation across multiple organizations. But what I see at Cloudflare is different. It’s about empowering partners to drive innovation and solve customer challenges, with Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud platform and our network being one of the largest and most interconnected in the world, we’re committed to creating long-term value together.

When you listen, you can hear it, a low murmur, a distant echo of something big emerging. It starts quietly, almost imperceptibly, as forward-thinking companies and partners take notice. Then, momentum builds. More voices join in, more hands reach out. And before you know it, what was once a whisper becomes a roar. That’s what drew me to Cloudflare.

Cloudflare is not just evolving its partner program, it is investing in a partner-first strategy that will define its next phase of growth as a company. Cloudflare’s commitment to partners is clear and in EMEA we’re specifically prioritizing:

• Accelerating partner-led revenue, aiming for more than 90% of total EMEA revenue through partnerships.

• Expanding market penetration, helping partners unlock large enterprise accounts and new verticals.

• Supporting partners to build service practices, helping partners build the skills they need to excite their customers and deliver unmatched value with Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud.

• Partnering in the best way possible, ensuring that partners are equipped, enabled, and incentivized to succeed, and that we have aligned to the right stakeholders, systems, and processes to support that experience.

Great companies are built by great teams. One of the most exciting aspects of joining Cloudflare is the opportunity to assemble, develop, and lead a world-class partnerships team in EMEA.

Cloudflare is at an inflection point, expanding its enterprise presence, deepening its channel engagement, and driving a new level of execution excellence. To accelerate this, we need to attract the best talent, foster a high-performance culture, and build an environment where our people, and our partners, can thrive.

What this means to me:

• Hiring the best: We are scaling our team with well-known industry-leading professionals who bring deep partner expertise, enterprise sales acumen, and a passion for innovation.

• Empowering growth: Investing in skills, training, and development to ensure that our team is best-in-class in partner management, sales execution, and customer success.

• Creating a performance culture: Establishing clear goals, accountability, and incentives that drive results while fostering collaboration, creativity, and impact.

• Winning together: Aligning with our partners to co-create value, build long-term relationships, and drive sustained market leadership.

I joined Cloudflare because I see an extraordinary opportunity:

• To drive a partner-first transformation that scales across the region.

• To be part of a company that is not just winning in the market, but redefining it.

• To build and develop a world-class team that will shape the future of partnerships in EMEA.

Cloudflare is building something special. And I couldn’t be more excited to be part of the journey!

I will add, there was no better way to join the roar than coming together at our Partner Summit during Cloudflare Connect London last week! I hosted alongside key members of our executive and regional teams, with 130+ key partners in attendance for a day-long event of learning, networking, and celebrating our growing ecosystem. It set the foundation for what’s ahead, and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together.

What drew me to Cloudflare was the unique combination of a powerful mission, a transparent and results-oriented culture, and the sheer scale of impact. Cloudflare isn’t just a technology company —  it’s a force for good, building a better Internet for everyone. This really resonates with my own values.  

My career has been defined by building, scaling, and developing teams in dynamic environments.  I’ve witnessed the transformative power of a strong culture in driving hypergrowth. I’ve experienced the intensity and agility required to disrupt a market. These experiences have reinforced my belief that people are the heart of any successful company, and that a people-first strategy is critical for long-term impact. During my interview process at Cloudflare, this belief was clearly evident in every conversation. Cloudflare is a place where people can do their best work and be proud of the impact they are making. Powered by innovation and rooted in purpose.

Cloudflare’s commitment to transparency is refreshing. In an industry often shrouded in secrecy, Cloudflare’s open approach fosters trust and collaboration. Perfectly aligned with my own leadership philosophy, which emphasizes open communication and honest feedback. I also deeply appreciate the “get things done” attitude, even if the “thing” isn’t perfect.  

Joining Cloudflare feels like a natural progression in my career. This is a significant opportunity to contribute to a scaling company that is not only at the forefront of technological advancement but also committed to making a positive impact on the world. I look forward to working alongside the talented team at Cloudflare to achieve our shared goals.

Today, after more than 13 years at the company, I am joining Cloudflare’s board of directors and retiring from my full-time position as CTO.

Back in 2012 I wrote a short post on my personal site simply titled: Programmer. The post announced that I’d recently joined a company called CloudFlare (still sporting that capital “F”) with the job title Programmer. I’d chosen that title in part because it was the very first title I’d ever had, and because it would reflect what I’d be doing at Cloudflare.

I had spent a lot of time working at startups—in technical and then management roles—and wanted to go back to the really technical part that I loved most. Cloudflare gave me that opportunity, and I worked on a lot of systems that make up the Cloudflare that so many people around the world use today.

Looking back on my time at the company it’s really, really hard to pick my top highlights. In 2019 I wrote 6,000 words on the experience of helping build Cloudflare. But here are five that stand out:

The night we finished the preparation to launch Universal SSL sticks in my memory. We set out to offer the Industry's First Universal SSL for free, effectively doubling the size of the encrypted web overnight, a big deal in 2014. I remember Cloudflare’s third co-founder, Lee Holloway, hunched over his laptop finishing the code. The team has been working on it all weekend, and late that Sunday night Lee announced “it’s done.” 

It’s easy to pick moments of great success or when things went really well and Cloudbleed in 2017 may not seem like a special moment, but it helped show who we were. It showed how a team could come together under intense stress, and how we could set the standard going forward for how companies disclose and talk about security problems. I personally discovered that a Google Meet call can be kept running for 24 hours and sleeping in two hour chunks is possible.

Originally from the UK, I was the first team member located outside the United States. I got to help build the largest offices outside the US: first, Cloudflare’s London office and then Cloudflare’s Lisbon office. These two offices are a big part of who we are today, with Lisbon being our European HQ.

When COVID halted our in-office work, I was blown away by the response from the team. As we all individually faced different difficulties because of the pandemic we continued to work together to ensure that the Internet, on which everyone was relying while confined at home, worked reliably and securely.

Picking a favourite product would be a bit like asking someone to choose their favourite child, but I have soft spots for Cloudflare’s WAF, DNS, and DDoS solutions because I personally worked on those systems. And I still feel I need to apologize to the WAF team who took over my code and had to face that one Perl script that shall not be named!

Beyond the products there’s something much deeper: Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better Internet. I’ve been very proud of how we have supported and advanced the Internet itself through our work on the latest standards and protocols. And I’m even prouder of the role we’ve played through Project Galileo, The Athenian Project, and Cloudflare for Campaigns.

Every week Cloudflare holds an all-hands company meeting which ends with “Shoutouts,” a chance to recognize members of the team who have gone above and beyond. Curiosity and empathy are two core values at Cloudflare, and I am struck every week by how often we’re recognizing teams of people who are being thanked for helping with a sale, fixing a bug, responding to an incident, or helping build Cloudflare. That team spirit is part of what makes Cloudflare a special place to work.

One of the things I will miss about not being at Cloudflare day-to-day is the incredible strength of the individual team members. I’ve been learning from them for 13 years straight!

When I joined the company the team was a lot smaller! We were 25 people and now, we’ve grown to more than 4,200 employees and 15 locations across the globe. As we grew I wore a lot of different hats. For a time I ran engineering, operations, security, and even IT. And, of course, I wrote for, and edited, the Cloudflare Blog for many, many years. Over time, we hired many great leaders to run those teams.

But the role that persisted was CTO. And today, we are announcing that, just as I gave up the title Programmer (and the programming that went along with it), I am giving up the title CTO (and the role’s responsibilities) for a new way to help Cloudflare grow and succeed, as a member of the board of directors.

Last year when I told Matthew that I planned to retire, I had not expected to be offered a seat on the company’s board. It’s an incredible and rare honour to go from being an employee of the company (albeit one who has been there from close to the beginning) to joining the board of directors. I am absolutely thrilled to be able to continue helping Cloudflare grow and succeed from a slightly different vantage point.

At the same time, Dane Knecht, who, until today, was SVP of Emerging Technology and Incubation, has become our CTO. Dane joined just a few months after me, and is uniquely positioned and experienced to take the CTO role. We’ve worked so closely for the last 13 years as peers, that in many meetings it would’ve been hard to distinguish our roles. I’m pretty sure that Dane bleeds Cloudflare orange, and I’ve never seen him wear a T-shirt that doesn’t say Cloudflare on it. He has been part of nearly every major milestone here at Cloudflare. He cares so deeply about the company, and its success; he will make a great CTO.

My plan isn’t to go off and work somewhere else, or start a new company. I intend to remain closely involved with Cloudflare in my role on the board. I am incredibly honoured, and grateful to have been part of Cloudflare’s incredible growth and success, and I am looking forward to helping the company continue its growth.

One area I’m particularly interested in assisting with is the company’s work across the product suite on AI. Back in 2002 (23 years ago! gulp!). I wrote a very popular open source machine learning (didn’t call it AI back then) email filtering program and in 2004 worked on how to deal with what happens when one AI system is used to attack another. At Cloudflare, we’ve used learning techniques to enhance security, block bots, and predict how our systems should behave and grow. There’s much more to do.

Just as co-founder Michelle likes to say: we’re just getting started. And so am I.

These wave machines are a new source of entropy, joining lava lamps in San Francisco, suspended rainbows in Austin, and double chaotic pendulums in London. The entropy they generate contributes to securing the Internet through LavaRand.

^{The new waves wall at Cloudflare’s Lisbon office sits beside the Radar Display of global Internet insights, with the 25th of April Bridge overlooking the Tagus River in the background.}

It’s exciting to see waves in Portugal now playing a role in keeping the Internet secure, especially given Portugal’s deep maritime history.

The installation honors Portugal’s passion for the sea and exploration of the unknown, famously beginning over 600 years ago, in 1415, with pioneering vessels like caravels and naus/carracks, precursors to galleons and other ships. Portuguese sea exploration was driven by navigation schools and historic voyages “through seas never sailed before” (“Por mares nunca dantes navegados” in Portuguese), as described by Portugal’s famous poet, Luís Vaz de Camões, born 500 years ago (1524).

Anyone familiar with Portugal knows the sea is central to its identity. The small country has 980 km of coastline, where most of its main cities are located. Maritime areas make up 90% of its territory, including the mid-Atlantic Azores. In 1998, Lisbon’s Expo 98 celebrated the oceans and this maritime heritage. Since 2011, the small town of Nazaré also became globally famous among the surfing community for its giant waves.

^{Nazaré’s waves, famous since Garrett McNamara’s 23.8 m (78 ft) ride in 2011, hold Guinness World Records for the biggest waves ever surfed. Photos: Sam Khawasé & Beatriz Paula, from Cloudflare.}

Portugal’s maritime culture also inspired literature and music, including poet Fernando Pessoa, who referenced it in his 1934 book Mensagem, and musician Rui Veloso, who dedicated his 1990s album Auto da Pimenta to Portugal’s historic connection to the sea.

As Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince, said recently, this new wall of entropy began with an idea back in 2023: “What could we use for randomness that was like our lava lamp wall in San Francisco but represented our team in Portugal?”

The original inspiration came from wave motion machine desk toys, which were popular among some of our team members. Waves and the ocean not only provide a source of movement and randomness, but also align with Portugal’s maritime history and the office’s scenic view.

However, this was easier said than done. It turns out that making a wave machine wall is a real challenge, given that these toys are not as popular as they were in the past,  and aren’t being manufactured in the size we needed any more. We scoured eBay and other sources but couldn't find enough, consistent in style and in working order wave machines. We also discovered that off-the-shelf models weren’t designed to run 24/7, which was a critical requirement for our use.

Undaunted, Cloudflare’s Places team, which ensures our offices reflect our values and culture, found a U.S.-based artisan that specializes in ocean wave displays to create the wave machines for us. Since 2009, his one-person business, Hughes Wave Motion Machines, has blended artistry, engineering, and research, following his transition from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, where he designed military and commercial satellites.

^{Timelapse of the mesmerizing office waves, set to the tune of an AI-generated song.}

Collaborating closely, we developed a custom rectangular wave machine (18 inches/45 cm long) that runs nonstop — not an easy task — which required hundreds of hours of testing and many iterations. Featuring rotating wheels, continuous motors, and a unique fluid formula, these machines create realistic ocean-like waves in green, blue, and Cloudflare’s signature orange. 

Here’s a quote from the artist himself about these wave machines:

“The machine’s design is a balancing act of matching components and their placement to how the fluid responds in a given configuration. There is a complex yet delicate relationship between viscosity, specific gravity, the size and design of the vessel, and the placement of each mechanical interface. Everything must be precisely aligned, centered around the fluid like a mathematical function. I like to say it’s akin to ’balancing a checkerboard on a beach ball in the wind.’”

^{The Cloudflare Places Team with Lisbon office architects and contractor testing wave machine placement, shelves, lighting, and mirrors to enhance movement and reflection, March 2024.}

Despite delays, the Lisbon wave machines finally debuted on March 10, 2025 — an incredibly exciting moment for the Places team.

Some numbers about our wave-machine entropy wall:

• 50 wave machines, 50 motion wheels & motors, 50 acrylic containers filled with Hughes Wave Fluid Formula (two immiscible liquids)

• 3 liquid colors: blue, green, and orange

• 15 months from concept to completion

• 14 flips (side-to-side balancing movements) per minute — over 20,000 per day

• Over 15 waves per minute

• ~0.5 liters of liquid per machine

Cloudflare’s servers handle 71 million HTTP requests per second on average, with 100 million HTTP requests per second at peak. Most of these requests are secured via TLS, which relies on secure randomness for cryptographic integrity. A Cryptographically Secure Pseudorandom Number Generator (CSPRNG) ensures unpredictability, but only when seeded with high-quality entropy. Since chaotic movement in the real world is truly random, Cloudflare designed a system to harness it. Our 2024 blog post expands on this topic in a more technical way, but here’s a quick summary.

In 2017, Cloudflare launched LavaRand, inspired by Silicon Graphics’ 1997 concept However, the need for randomness in security was already a hot topic on our blog before that, such as in our discussions of securing systems and cryptography. Originally, LavaRand collected entropy from a wall of lava lamps in our San Francisco office, feeding an internal API that servers periodically query to include in their entropy pools. Over time, we expanded LavaRand beyond lava lamps, incorporating new sources of office chaos while maintaining the same core method.

A camera captures images of dynamic, unpredictable randomness displays. Shadows, lighting changes, and even sensor noise contribute entropy. Each image is then processed into a compact hash, converting it into a sequence of random bytes. These, combined with the previous seed and local system entropy, serve as input for a Key Derivation Function (KDF), which generates a new seed for a CSPRNG — capable of producing virtually unlimited random bytes upon request. The waves in our Lisbon office are now contributing to this pool of randomness.

Cloudflare’s LavaRand API makes this randomness accessible internally, strengthening cryptographic security across our global infrastructure. For example, when you use Math.random() in Cloudflare Workers, part of that randomness comes from LavaRand. Similarly, querying our drand API taps into LavaRand as well. Cloudflare offers this API to enable anyone to generate random numbers and even seed their own systems.

^{Photo of the view from our Lisbon office, featuring ceiling lights arranged in a wave-like pattern.}

Entropy also inspired the design ethos of our new Lisbon office, given that the wall of waves and the office are part of the same project. As soon as you enter, you're greeted not only by the motion of the entropy wall but also by the constant movement of planet Earth on our Cloudflare Radar Display screen that stands next to it. But the waves don’t stop there — more elements throughout the space mimic the dynamic flow of the Internet itself. Unlike ocean tides, however, Internet traffic ebbs and flows with the motion of the Sun, not the Moon.

As you walk through the office, waves are everywhere — in the ceiling lights, the architectural contours, and even the floor plan, thoughtfully designed by our architect to reflect the fluid movement of water. The visual elements create a cohesive experience, reinforcing a sense of motion. Each meeting room embraces this maritime theme, named after famous Portuguese beaches — including, naturally, Nazaré.

We partnered with an incredible group of local Portuguese vendors for this construction project, where all the leads were women — something incredibly rare for the industry. The local teams worked with passion, proudly wore Cloudflare t-shirts, and fostered a warm, family-like atmosphere. They openly expressed pride in the project, sharing how it stood out from anything they had worked on before.

^{Our amazing third-party team and internal Places team, proudly rocking Cloudflare shirts after bringing this project to life.}

Next, we have several name options for this new wall of entropy. Help us decide the best one, and register your vote using this form.

The Surf Board

Chaos Reef

Waves of Entropy

Wall of Waves

Whirling Wave Wall

Chaotic Wave Wall

Waves of Chaos

If you’re interested in working in Cloudflare’s Lisbon office, we’re hiring! Our career page lists our open roles in Lisbon, as well as our other locations in the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Asia.

^{Acknowledgements: This project was only possible with the effort, vision and help of John Graham-Cumming, Caroline Quick, Jen Preston, Laura Atwall, Carolina Beja, Hughes Wave Motion Machines, P4 Planning and Project Management, Gensler Europe, Openbook Architecture, and Vector Mais.}

I am thrilled to embark on this journey to run Product and Engineering at Cloudflare, driving forward the mission of helping build a better Internet. 

While I was a graduate student at University of Illinois, the university introduced the Mosaic web browser to students. In addition to being super easy to install and use, it displayed pictures next to text for the first time. This may not seem impressive today, but back then it felt like a magical step forward.

This simple but powerful upgrade opened up the once niche user base from academics to the masses, transforming the world wide web to become an Internet phenomenon. Since then, I’ve always sought to be part of teams that worked on transformational technologies, including Software-as-a-Service, cloud computing, and AI. Innovation is the life blood of every technology company. To this day, I’m inspired by building products and technology that get adopted at mass scale.

The world is in a very interesting moment for technological innovation: the AI landscape is uncharted and developing at an exponential rate; the urgency for enterprises to reduce tech debt and reliance on legacy applications is at an all time high; multi-cloud deployments are becoming a reality for optimal performance and global scale; and high performance connectivity is table stakes. Cloudflare finds itself in a compelling position at the intersection of these key themes. We are uniquely poised to drive disruption and empower customers to do the same as they transform their businesses, and I’m excited to use my experience to help move our mission forward.

In order to reach massive scale, platforms need to be extensible (i.e., they need to be able to grow easily). The best way to do this is by knowing your customers’ biggest pain points and improving the core experience while creating adjacent products that solve their most challenging problems. Combined with being obsessed with your customers getting value and having a deep understanding of how the technology landscape is evolving around you, it becomes a powerful growth strategy.

This was the approach that I took during my time at ServiceNow, and one of the reasons why we were able to build the product business from $1.5 billion to $10+ billion in annualized revenue.

Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud — an innovative cloud native platform of security, network connectivity, and developer solutions — provides a unique foundation for driving value, no matter the industry. I’m excited to help Cloudflare further grow and refine our product offerings, while ensuring they are purpose-built and scalable to meet the needs of our growing customer base. Together, we can create solutions that empower any organization to enhance its global online presence while maintaining security and performance at the forefront.

It was very clear as I met many amazing people at Cloudflare, including co-founders Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn, that the team takes pride in solving deep technical Internet infrastructure problems while putting customers first. In addition to working with world-class product and engineering teams, I am looking forward to collaborating with the wider business, our partners, and our customers to realize the potential of Cloudflare's people, platform, and organic growth. I’m looking forward to helping build a better Internet with Cloudflare!

During the summer of 2024, Cloudflare welcomed approximately 60 Intern-ets from all around the globe on a mission to #HelpBuildABetterInternet. Over the course of their internships, our wonderful interns tackled real-world challenges from different teams all over the company and contributed to cutting-edge projects. As returning interns, we – Shaheen, Aaron, and Jada – would like to show off the great work our cohort has done and experiences we’ve had throughout our time here.

_{Austin Interns after volunteering at the Central Texas Food Bank.}

Cloudflare interns take pride in driving high-impact initiatives, playing a vital role in advancing Cloudflare's mission. With our diverse roles and projects this summer, we'd love to highlight some of the exciting work we've been involved in:

Rahul, a Software Engineer intern, built a system to autograde intern application assignments for future students looking to join Cloudflare. It was built entirely on the Cloudflare Developer Platform, using Cloudflare Access, Browser Rendering, D1, Durable Objects, R2, and Workers!

Jessica, a Software Engineer intern, created a new threads api for the Workers AI team that automatically recalls past messages when running inference, helping developers to generate chat sessions when building personalized chatbots.

Anshika, an Internal Audit intern, worked on SOX & ISO testing for the first quarter of 2024, a data center audit, and is helping to roll out the automation of SOC 2 testing.

Jake, a Business Development Relations intern, led the creation and launch of an outbound BDR campaign that generated new pipeline for Cloudflare involving tailored messaging, account criteria, and enablement materials.

Utkarsh, a Software Engineer intern, built an internal tool for the Capacity Planning team to simulate unforeseen scenarios and changes within the Cloudflare network infrastructure, to help them provision new servers more efficiently.

Shaheen, a Product Management intern, and Anantharaman, a Software Engineer Intern, collaboratively enhanced Cloudflare D1 with improvements in billing observability, the dashboard, and Wrangler commands while also launching billing alerts and audit logs.

Jada, a Software Engineer intern, developed a Policy Tester feature for the Zero Trust Access Policies page to enable Cloudflare customers to view policy update statistics, using Cloudflare Durable Objects for the RESTful API.

Dhravya, a Software Engineer intern, helped launch function calling in Workers AI, a feature that enables LLMs to dynamically perform actions or retrieve data.

Prajjwal, a Research intern, focused on personalizing the WAF attack score and enhancing the overall user experience while experimenting with zero-shot learning techniques to detect new and evolving attacks.

Megan, a Security Analytics intern, ensured a smooth transition to an in-house security access tool by managing internal user access, aligning group rules, and addressing missing or duplicated groups/users during system migrations.

For the first time since the pandemic, Cloudflare had over half of our interns in-person in our Austin, Lisbon and London offices. As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas and our new Austin office intern class shows it, with over 20 interns working in-person throughout the summer! Some of our favorite events were…

Intern ping-pong tournament After weeks of ping-pong classes, our interns got to put their skills to the test with a ping-pong tournament! The competition was fierce, with paddles flying and cheers echoing throughout the office as everyone battled for the title of Ping-Pong Champion. In the end, Josh, a PM intern on Workers, stole the show and was crowned as the 2024 Ping-Pong Champion.

_{Interns in the Austin office participating in the Ping-Pong tournament.}

Food Bank Volunteering The Austin interns got the opportunity to give back to the community this summer at the Central Texas Food Bank. With the help of our full-timers the team got to work instantly, from packing food boxes to helping organize donations. Thanks to all the hard work, the team was able to feed a total of 9,000 people!

_{Austin Interns volunteering at the Central Texas Food Bank.}

Austin Game Show The Austin interns had the exciting opportunity to participate in an exciting game show with their wonderful recruiters. This competitive showdown saw the “Winter-nets” face off against the “Return-ets” in a series of fun and challenging activities, including Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune. In the end, the Return-ets took the victory, with perhaps one too many pictures to prove it. Events like this are among the best, fostering bonding and friendly competition that bring everyone closer together.

_{“Return-ets” posing with the trophy they won.}

Our Lisbon office also had 10 interns join Cloudflare and spend time doing some awesome things, including…

Visiting the Lisbon Data Center One of the most impressive parts of Cloudflare is its infrastructure, which spans hundreds of data centers worldwide. This summer, our interns were able to get up close and personal with our Lisbon data center where they ventured through Cloudflare’s state-of-the-art server rooms. They witnessed the security measures that are in place to ensure the safety of our data and the support systems that ensure that the facility is able to run nonstop.

_{Interns and Cloudflarians taking a photo in the Lisbon data center.}

Our remote interns got to take on some virtual adventures throughout the summer, building friendships and memories from all around the globe! Some of the highlights were…

Interns all over the globe were shipped a box filled with an assortment of Japanese snacks and got to spend time together snacking on unique and new foods. This event not only satisfied our snack cravings but also strengthened our global connections with a fun, shared experience.

_{Remote interns showing their favorite snacks from the snack boxes we received.}

Throughout the summer, interns got the chance to mingle with one another as well as the rest of the company. For a break from project work and a time to socialize, interns looked forward to Virtual Intern Game Days and Gatheround meetups. These designated online hangout blocks made for a more fun and inclusive experience for the remote interns. Along with that, remote interns near Cloudflare offices were welcome to join in-person events throughout the summer: from team lunches to arts & crafts and social mixers, visiting the office is always worth the trip!

_{Group photo of a Gatherround session with the interns and Cloudfriends.}

Executive chats have been a key part of ensuring our interns get to truly know our top leaders and ask them questions 1-on-1. This summer was no exception, with interns hosting over eight executive chats filled with inspiring stories, valuable knowledge, and meaningful connections. Here’s what our interns had to say about it…

Sasha enjoyed talking with Matthew Prince, Chief Executive Officer: “It was so heartfelt and emotional. I had heard the story of Lee Holloway before, but hearing it from Matthew himself was really impactful.” 

Chantal loved the talk with Michele Yetman, Chief People Officer: “I enjoyed hearing about her job history and how she carefully adapted skill sets from her previous jobs to craft her career. Also, she was curious to hear our perspective and answered our questions in honest detail.”

Anantharaman liked the talk with Dane Knecht, SVP of Emerging Technology and Innovation: “Learning about the growth of ETI, the Austin office and the mission to move fast and break things within ETI to nurture a startup-y culture was very interesting.”

Matilde valued the talk with Nitin Rao, Interim Chief Product Officer: “I didn't know much about him beforehand, but I found it fascinating to learn about his role at the company and the great impact of his contributions to Cloudflare's current infrastructure.”

Each summer, Cloudflare Intern-ets have the opportunity to showcase their work during the annual Intern Presentations series. Hundreds of Cloudflarians join in to support and celebrate the interns including Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn. As Jake, a BDR Operations Intern, puts it, “The opportunity to present in front of the founders and the rest of the company speaks volumes about how much Cloudflare values its interns' projects.”

Cloudfriends is a program specifically for interns to socialize with people throughout Cloudflare. Cloudflare employees from various departments signed up, and we were able to schedule meetings with all of them. These meetings let us get to know more people, share experiences, and keep in touch (even after our internships have ended). On a similar note, Cloudflare has a program for Random Employee Chats that interns can also take part in. These chats randomly pair you with another Cloudflare employee once a week and allow you to do even more socializing.

Throughout our time here at Cloudflare, we formed numerous unforgettable memories that truly made our internship experience one of a kind.

Cloudflare is filled with the most driven, passionate, and all around amazing people, so it’s no wonder that we all had a spectacular time interacting with everyone!

Ananya took networking to the next level by engaging with 49 people throughout her internship, forging valuable connections across the company. Meanwhile, Yomna wasted no time setting up 25 1:1s by the end of her second week, meeting a bunch of awesome people along the way.

Sasha, Shaheen, Jack, Jake, Jaden, and Josh hit up a local Austin restaurant and spent SIX hours bonding over laughs, talks, and good vibes. From strangers to friends, this was a moment that will last well beyond their internships.

Carol and Jessica enjoyed their teams’ on-site events in the Austin office. They were able to meet all of their team members face-to-face and work and have fun together. The numerous on-site events that took place over the summer let the Austin Intern-ets connect with people from all over the company, including other Intern-ets that were remote or working out of another office.

Dhanush and Utkarsh gathered the interns to enjoy the Olympics in the Austin office. They all sat in the same area, talked with each other, and while watching the intense competition.

Aaron, Carol, and Tara enjoyed all the game nights the R2 team hosted. They played a variety of board and card games from For Sale to Brass: Birmingham that everyone enjoyed, and they even did some late-night karaoke. Anshika also enjoyed the games that the Internal Audit team played before their all-hands meetings, such as skribbl.io. These events let everyone on the team be more connected and overall just have fun.

The Austin interns filled their time with loads of different activities. From a dinner with Matthew, to visiting Barton Springs, to hosting a 4th of July barbecue party on top of a high-rise and overlooking Austin’s skyline, they certainly didn’t miss an opportunity to get out and have fun.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the London interns enjoyed their lunches on the beach. They were able to talk, swim, and get to know each other. The Lisbon office also hosted a bunch of team lunches that allowed everyone to work together and enjoy the sun.

Dhravya's caffeine fix: Dhravya drank around 250 cups of coffee over the course of his 12-week internship.

Matilde the bus marathoner: Every week, Matilde traveled 740 km from Braga to the Lisbon office by bus. By the end of her internship, she had accumulated 108 hours and 8880 km.

Anantharaman's epic commute: Anantharaman chose to turn his daily commute into a marathon, walking over 100 miles during his 14-week internship.

Jack the Linux legend: Jack was the second most active Linux-based developer for dash.cloudflare.com.

Josh the Ping-Pong prodigy: Josh started his internship as a ping-pong newbie but after daily break-time practice, he smashed his way to win the intern ping-pong tournament.

Wing night warriors: The Austin interns PROUDLY placed 24th in the Pluckers Wing night trivia.

Wondering how to get the most out of your time as an intern? We surveyed the Intern-ets for some insider hints…

Be curious and don’t be afraid to ask questions: An overwhelming number of Intern-ets and executives alike emphasized the importance of staying curious and keeping an open mind. Aside from that, asking questions can make a huge difference to get unstuck or even think ahead on problems; As Nikhil, a SWE Intern, points out, “Cloudflare is vast, and people are super friendly + eager to help.”

The importance of introductions: PM Intern Yomna notes how “cross-functional work…always works best when you are able to establish proper connections, a unified voice, and an open space that is dedicated to tackling the problem/situation at hand” and BDR Operations Intern Blaise recommends that interns “...make meetings with everyone on your team just to understand what each person is working on, and where you may be able to slot in”

Data on data: Marketing Analytics Intern Tanuj provides some insight, highlighting how “In analytics, it's crucial to be data-informed rather than just data-driven. For instance, data might suggest cutting a high-spend marketing campaign due to low short-term ROI. However, understanding the business context – such as the campaign's role in building brand loyalty can reveal its long-term value. Always consider the broader picture for more impactful insights.”

Sign up here to be notified of new graduate and internship opportunities for 2025. Cloudflare is also hiring for full-time opportunities: check out open positions and apply today!

I’m delighted to be joining Cloudflare as Vice President of Sales in the US, Canada, and Latin America.

I’ve had the privilege of leading sales for some of the world’s most iconic tech companies, including IBM and Cisco. During my career I’ve led international teams numbering in the thousands and driving revenue in the billions of dollars while serving some of the world's largest enterprise customers. I’ve seen first-hand the evolution of technology and what it can achieve for businesses, from robotics, automation, and data analytics, to cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AI.

I firmly believe Cloudflare is well on its way to being one of the next iconic tech companies.

Cloudflare has a unique opportunity to help businesses navigate an enduring wave of technological change. There are few companies in the world that operate in the three most exciting fields of innovation that will continue to shape our world in the coming years: cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity. Cloudflare is one of those companies. When I was approached for this role, I spoke to a wide range of connections across the financial sector, private companies, and government. The feedback was unanimous that Cloudflare is poised on the edge of exhilarating growth.

I was fortunate to join Cisco two years after its annual revenue passed the \$1 billion mark and had the privilege of helping scale the business to more than \$49 billion in revenue the year I left. Cloudflare passed the \$1 billion milestone just last year, and I see the same potential for growth here as I saw at Cisco.

Cloudflare's global sales organization is growing. I’m excited to help accelerate that process in a way that delivers recurring revenue for the business while ensuring we retain a very high bar in terms of the talent we bring onto the team. My experience leading complex, cross-functional sales organizations within large global companies has taught me a great deal about the common traits among highly effective sales functions.

The groups of individuals that come together to make true teams are the ones that successfully focus on a unifying goal and develop skills like communication, attitude, process, organization, consistency, collaboration, partnership, and accountability.  These teams embrace diversity and bring out of each other the best expertise, creativity, and skills, making the team stronger and keeping the goal in focus.

We will achieve the opportunity ahead of us only as long as we have our customers as our north star. Today, the Americas represent more than half of Cloudflare’s revenue worldwide and are home to some of our largest and most strategic customers – both in the private and public sectors – including 30% of the Fortune 1000. Brands from Zendesk to Shopify and from Colgate-Palmolive to Mars rely on Cloudflare to operate their businesses in a fast, secure, and reliable way.

Whatever the technology, there are three common fundamentals I’ve found essential to creating value for customers: being the expert on their challenges, understanding how to pick the right combination of products, services, and solutions from those available, and knowing your competition.

Cloudflare already has an incredible and growing range of products and services that are helping millions of individuals and organizations maximize the opportunities presented by cloud computing and generative AI, all while staying safe from the threat of cyberattacks.

If it were needed, one additional deciding factor behind my excitement in joining Cloudflare is its ambitious mission to help build a better Internet. As a father, I want the Internet to be a safe and valuable resource for my family and friends and for generations to come. I don’t want my daughter to have to worry about her personal data and privacy as she’s buying Billie Eilish concert tickets online (and, yes, I’m going too).

Today Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud protects nearly 20% of all websites online and stops 209 billion cyber attacks daily. In addition to its growing customer base, Cloudflare is living up to its mission by offering its services for free to millions more individuals and small businesses, including the most vulnerable voices online through its Project Galileo initiative.

The combination of a strong mission, genuine values, a great team, and incredible technology isn’t a given in every company, but is evident at Cloudflare. I’m excited to play a part as Cloudflare continues to scale its business and help build a better Internet for everyone.

If you’re interested in learning more about what Cloudflare can do for your organization, please get in touch here. If you’re an ambitious, talented sales professional looking for your next challenging and rewarding career move, check out our open positions here.

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the decision to join a company is not just about making a career move. Instead, it's about finding a mission, a community, and a platform to make a meaningful impact. Cloudflare’s remarkable technology and incredibly driven teams are two reasons why I’m excited to join the team.

Joining Cloudflare as the Chief Partner Officer is my commitment to driving innovation and impact across the Internet through our channel partnerships. In each conversation throughout the interview process, I found myself getting more and more excited about the opportunity. Several former trusted colleagues who have recently joined Cloudflare repeatedly told me how amazing the people and company culture are. A positive culture driven by people that are passionate about their work is key. We work too hard not to have fun while doing it.

When it comes to partnerships, I see the immense value that partners can provide. My philosophy revolves around fostering collaborative, value-driven partnerships. It is about building ecosystems where we jointly navigate challenges, innovate together, and collectively thrive in a rapidly evolving global marketplace where the success of our channel partners directly influences our collective achievements. It also involves investing in their growth through tailored programs and providing strategic guidance and ongoing support. In doing so, we strengthen our most competitive advantage: our partners.

Partners are integral to our success in extending critical solutions to our customers, to fully connect and secure businesses, and in turn, the Internet at large. There are unique aspects to Cloudflare that I believe will be especially appealing as we grow this part of our business.

From edge computing to cybersecurity solutions, Cloudflare is renowned for its innovative technologies that are reshaping the Internet itself. As someone who is deeply passionate about pushing the boundaries of technology and driving innovation, joining a company like Cloudflare was a clear choice. I am eager to be part of a team that is at the forefront of technological advancements, constantly striving to make the Internet faster, safer, and more reliable for its billions of users worldwide.

Cloudflare's mission of helping to build a better Internet resonates deeply with me. In an age where digital connectivity is more crucial than ever, Cloudflare's commitment to helping make the Internet more secure, accessible, and resilient is both inspiring and necessary. By joining Cloudflare, I see an opportunity to contribute to a larger cause by empowering our partner ecosystem to help with this mission.

One of the most compelling aspects of Cloudflare is its culture of collaboration and inclusivity. From my first conversation, I have been impressed by the genuine sense of camaraderie and teamwork that permeates the organization. In all my conversations, both internally and externally, I get a real sense that Cloudflare fosters an environment where diverse perspectives are celebrated, and where every individual is empowered to make a difference. I am excited to be part of a community that values transparency, empathy, and continuous learning.

With a global network that puts it within 50 milliseconds of around 95% of the online population, Cloudflare has a far-reaching impact on the digital economy. Joining Cloudflare means being part of a truly global team, working with all different partners from all corners of the world. This global perspective not only presents exciting opportunities for collaboration and growth but also underscores the significance of Cloudflare's mission on a global scale.

Cloudflare’s tried and tested technology delivers value at massive scale. This presents immense opportunities for partners to achieve significant growth and foster a true partnership together to better serve our customers.

Working with channel partners over the years, fostering meaningful relationships, and gaining insights into unique perspectives is what I find the most enjoyment in. The constant exchange of ideas and learning within these relationships acts as a catalyst for innovation and continuous improvement.

Since my early days as a sales account manager, I experienced the immense value partners provide first-hand, and leaned into this. As an integral part of my success, I found myself crafting comprehensive sales strategies that aligned our partners' capabilities with my business objectives. I focused on developing value-driven partnerships that transcend a purely transactional mindset, which led me to a role managing partners and eventually leading channel sales and distribution teams.

Cloudflare embodies everything I personally look for in a company. I am eager to be part of the talented team here and partner with organizations around the world to drive meaningful change by contributing to the mission of helping build a better Internet for all. The future is bright, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of it.

If you’re interested in joining Cloudflare’s Partner Program, you can learn more here: https://www.cloudflare.com/partners/.

I am excited to announce that I joined Cloudflare last month as Head of Australia & New Zealand, to continue to build on Cloudflare’s success in the region through extending our valuable relationships with our customers and partners.

I’ve been fortunate over my 25-year career in the IT industry to have worked for some of the most recognised and innovative organisations such as Oracle, Salesforce, and Zendesk. It’s been exciting to be inside these businesses as they’ve taken new ideas about how software can be developed and delivered to solve real world problems for any organisation’s customers. I’ve learned a lot by being a part of the industry, but probably more importantly, I’ve learned the most from the smart, experienced, diverse groups of talented people that I’ve had the pleasure to work with in ANZ and across Asia Pacific. I have always been interested in the problems that organisations are trying to solve through technology — for example, responding to strategic challenges, reducing cost, improving revenue, reducing risk — and joining Cloudflare is an opportunity to stay focussed on addressing those critical issues with our customers and partners using Cloudflare’s innovative solutions.

Cloudflare’s mission is to help build a better Internet. So the question I asked myself is, “why is that so important?” In truth, the Internet has become such an integral part of our everyday lives that we take it for granted and forget that we are using it today in ways for which it was not originally designed or architected. It doesn’t have the security, performance, or reliability that is required to ensure the integrity that the modern world expects. Legacy solutions to solve these problems aren’t scalable or cost-effective. This became especially true once the cloud happened.

The solution has been a massive shift at the network layer as “as-a-service” delivery architecture evolves. Cloudflare is leading this transition through its extensive global network, providing security and enhancing the performance of business critical applications, while at the same time eliminating the cost and complexity of managing network hardware within a global cloud platform.

On this basis I’m convinced that Cloudflare, with its distributed network, continued focus on innovation, as well as our commitment to helping our customers, is in the best position to respond to the challenges being presented.

I live in Melbourne and enjoy all the wonderful things that the city has to offer, from beautiful parks for some exercise, to its vibrant restaurant and bar scene, to the exciting array of major and global sporting events such as the AFL, Australian Open Tennis and Formula One Grand Prix. I love spending time with family and friends.

I’m looking forward to working with our customers and partners on their projects to deliver genuine business value. I believe that Cloudflare’s products and solutions will make a real difference to the way organisations in every part of ANZ’s economy can successfully respond to today’s security challenges.

We have always strived to make Cloudflare somewhere where our entire team feels safe and empowered to bring their whole selves to work. It’s the best way to enable the many incredible people we have working here to be able to do their best work. With that as context, we are proud to share that Cloudflare has been certified and recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces in 2023 by Newsweek and the Best Practice Institute (BPI) for the second consecutive year.  

Cloudflare’s ranking follows surveys of more than 2 million employees at companies with team sizes ranging from 50 to 10,000+, and includes US-based firms and international companies with a strong US presence. As part of the qualification for the certification, Cloudflare participated in a company-wide global employee survey — so this award isn’t a hypothetical, it’s driven by our employees’ sentiment and responses.

With this recognition, we wanted to reflect on what’s new, what’s remained the same, and what’s ahead for the team at Cloudflare. There are a few things that especially stand out:

Helping to build a better Internet.

If you speak to any member of the Cloudflare team about why they’re here, they’ll almost certainly talk about our mission. Whether it’s in our careers, or our lives more generally, so many of us have been positively impacted by the Internet. It is an incredible resource for humanity, and being able to contribute back to it is definitely a draw for many Cloudflarians. In an internal survey from September 2023, 92% of our team stated that they are inspired by Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better Internet — and 88% said that their work is important to the company.

Working on these kinds of problems, at the scale Cloudflare is at, requires constant innovation and figuring out solutions at the frontier of technology. At the same time, Cloudflare for years has been giving back to the community and society — through programs like Project Galileo, Athenian Project, and Project Cybersafe Schools — that make us especially proud of the work we do.

Cloudflarians get a real sense of our company culture, team, mission, and how we work, right when they start interviewing with us. Candidate feedback paints a picture of what this looks and feels like:

“The entire process is really different from anything I’ve experienced before — and I’m enjoying it very much. Also, the informal tone makes it much more human and everyone is so approachable.”  

“I’ve never met a group of people at a company that are all consistently excited about the work they are doing.”

Before anyone gets an offer, every candidate in the final stage connects with one of our executive leaders including our co-founders. This has been part of our interview process for many years, and is designed to ensure candidates truly understand what they’re signing up for in their role as part of joining the Cloudflare team, and to make our executive team accessible to everyone starting on day one. Transparency is one of our core values, and we want all employees to have a direct line to our leadership.

Transparency also serves as our guiding light when we engage with the public. We are quick to share detailed reports amid and after incidents, in the hopes that they will benefit the Internet-at-large. And we share regular impact reports detailing our progress around key environmental, social, and governance initiatives.

We have continued to receive unmatched interest with close to half a million applicants in the first half of 2023, which is nearly a 300% increase from 2022. Our offer acceptance rate remained equally as impressive at a rate of 90%. We are continuing to hire worldwide with hundreds of open positions across the organization ranging from Sales to Engineering.

We are committed to developing a globally distributed team with a flexible working approach. Individual teams opt into: hybrid, remote, or in-office, depending on what works best for the folks on the team, and the team more broadly. As an example, we've seen less tenured folks on certain teams wanting to go into the office more frequently to work together in-person. For reasons across the board, we give teams the ability to choose what works best for them. We’ve found that this approach gives teams the opportunity to establish their optimal working arrangements that fit with their objectives and enable collaboration.

Our paid time off policy is on a take-what-you-need basis. We encourage employees to find a comfortable work-life balance by taking as many days off as they need while still being able to perform their jobs satisfactorily.

We want to empower and inspire our team members to do their best work every day — and this includes making sure they feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled both inside and outside of our workplace. Aside from comprehensive healthcare benefits, this also includes support for family planning like parental leave and Carrot Fertility, access to mental health and mindfulness programs through Ginger and Headspace apps, and three days of paid time off each year to volunteer in our respective communities.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a priority at Cloudflare to help ensure a sense of belonging and community for all of our employees and to best propel our business forward. Our 15+ Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are employee-led and have designated executive sponsors of each group. These communities come together to support each other, celebrate their cultures, and help with initiatives to educate, support professional development, and more. We have a robust number of ERGs and this continues to grow as the diversity at Cloudflare expands.

Our employees believe that Cloudflare is a special place, with an especially meaningful mission. They believe there is no other place where a team so small is having such a large impact on the Internet. To keep up, it's critical that we have great people across the company to help us continue our mission. To learn more about the Cloudflare career opportunities, please check out Cloudflare Careers!

One piece of advice I received early in my career was to get into a transformative industry. Those words have followed me ever since, and it’s a goal I’ve encouraged many others to pursue.

For me, it meant first launching into biotechnology where I learned my passion for working with deeply technical and disruptive businesses doing things that hadn’t been done before.

I later joined Amazon at a time when it was best known as a retailer instead of a technology company as it is today. While there, I led HR for some of their most technical businesses from eCommerce to AWS. As all these businesses scaled over the next decade, I became increasingly focused, and then finally fully dedicated to, leading HR for AWS. During that time, I had the opportunity to serve as a thought partner to the AWS CEO and leadership team as the organization grew from 400 employees to 30,000.

It was at this point in my career that I realized my passion for scaling a company with practices that reinforce the mission and building programs with intention to nurture the culture. To have any impact, all this work must be in support of promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace that values individual and group differences to ensure all employees, across a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, feel valued, welcome, and integrated.

Later, I took all those learnings to Tableau as Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) before it was acquired by Salesforce. Like AWS, Tableau was ready to begin its next phase of growth and I designed and implemented the next generation talent strategy that supported the long-term growth plans for the business.

Today, as a two-time Chief People Officer and with experience and passion for scaling large global companies, building is in my DNA. That’s why Cloudflare’s bold mission to “help to build a better Internet” excites me. I am a builder at my core, and am humbled for the opportunity to help build again and to be selected to join the team for this next phase of the Cloudflare journey.

There are three things that stood out to me and made this next step an easy one:

Cloudflare caught my attention as a next generation disruptor in the tech industry by offering security, availability, and scalability of applications with no trade off with speed. The advancement of generative AI and Cloudflare's partnership with many of these businesses as customers put it front and center at a transformative time in the tech space.

It was evident with each interview how the company deeply values both its customers and its people. The transparency and keen attention on scaling what is already a very special place to work was evident with each conversation. That really resonated with me. I always view my work through the lens of how it impacts people, leaders, and customers. For me, putting both customers and people at the center of everything we do on the Cloudflare’s growing People team is paramount as we create the people strategy that supports achieving the company’s high-growth business objectives.

Too often, company culture is defined by, and confined to, employee handbooks and posters on the wall. In rarer cases, it's something that is both innate and carefully nurtured by leaders who demonstrate their values through their actions. That’s what I’ve found at Cloudflare. The transparency, trust, and curiosity of this organization is energizing. The people I’ve had the opportunity to engage with have been warm, humble, and bright.

As I launch in my new position here at Cloudflare, my priority will be to first learn as much as I can about the people-first culture and ensure the work we do within the People team is aligned. I’m excited to bring my own curiosity and passion for disruptive and transformative companies to a new team to help Cloudflare scale and flourish, and help build amazing careers for all of our people.

This year, Cloudflare welcomed a class of approximately 40 interns, hailing from five different countries for an unforgettable summer. As we joined both remotely and in-person across Cloudflare’s global offices, our experiences spanned a variety of roles from engineering, product management to internal auditing and marketing. Through invaluable mentorship, continuous learning, and the chance to make a real-world impact, our summer was truly enriched at every step. Join us, Anni and Emilie, as we provide an insider's perspective on a summer at Cloudflare, sharing snippets and quotes from our intern cohort.

You might have noticed that we have a new name for the interns: the Intern-ets! Our fresh intern nickname was born from a brainstorm between us and our recruiter, Judy. While “Cloudies”, “Cloudterns”, and “Flaries” made the shortlist, a company-wide vote crowned "Intern-ets" as the favorite. And just like that, we've made Cloudflare history!

We're all incredibly proud to have gotten the opportunity to tackle interesting and highly impactful projects throughout the duration of our internships. To give you a glimpse of our summer, here are a few that showcase the breadth and depth of our experiences.

Mia M., Product Manager intern, worked on the Cloudflare Secrets Store, which is a new product that will allow Cloudflare customers to store, encrypt, and deploy sensitive data across the product suite. She focused on creating requirements for the core platform and tackling the first milestone, bringing secrets and environment variables from the per-Worker level to the account level in the Workers platform.

Pierre, Research intern, focused on integrating differential privacy—a layer of protection with formal privacy guarantees—into distributed aggregation protocols. This privacy layer is imperative for user trust and data security as these protocols are commonly used for collecting sensitive information, such as browser telemetry or health data.

Johnny, Software Engineer intern, worked on a new feature for API Shield called Object-Level Access Policies as a first step in a solution to combat Broken Object-Level Authorization, which has been ranked as the #1 API Security flaw by OWASP. This feature will enable customers to specify explicit allowlists and blocklists for API traffic per object.

Olivia, Project Manager intern, led the Dissatisfied (DSAT) Customer Outreach Project and JIRA Automations for the Customer Support team. The DSAT project involves reaching out to Premium customers who express dissatisfaction with the goal of providing personalized contact to ensure they feel valued. The JIRA Automation project aims to create zero-touch tickets, removing Customer Support as the middle man.

Also don’t forget to check out the amazing intern projects that got featured in a blog post!

Emilie, Software Engineering intern introduced a debugging feature for Cloudflare Queues.

Joaquin, Software Engineer intern added a new Workers Database integration.

Austin, Software Engineer intern created scheduled deletion for Cloudflare Stream.

Beyond our projects, we had tons of fun getting to meet other Cloudflarians and experience the vibrant Cloudflare culture. Let's dive into some of the standout moments that made our internships truly special!

This summer, the interns dotted the globe, working from cozy home setups to bustling offices in cities. Regardless of where we worked, we had a blast. Here's what some fellow interns have to say about their work experiences:

Austin office: Jada loved her colleagues at the Austin office as they were “warm and open to exploring the city, [...], and hanging out outside of work”. Anni and Maximo loved attending the Austin-based team summit where they attended strategy sessions and met the team in-person.

San Francisco office: Emmanuel F. enjoyed getting to interact with other engineers during SF Team Lunches. Matthew enjoyed working on the rooftop to a view of the city skyline. Jonathan appreciated the hybrid work model enjoyed by SF employees.

Remote work: Johnny liked the distributed and flexible work style that the company embraces. Daniël, also working remotely and found it amusing how “[s]everal people have noticed the Feynman Lectures on Physics on the shelf behind me in my home and have asked about it.”

Remote intern events: Emmanuel G., Aaron, and Feiyu enjoyed the intern calls that were held on GatherRound as “it was a fun, quick way to get to meet everyone.” Pradyumna particularly liked it when we played skribbl.io.

With so many exceptional minds at Cloudflare, every interaction became a chance for us to learn and grow. Here are some awe-inspiring individuals who have made our internships unforgettable:

Harshal, Systems Engineer: Aaron is grateful for his mentor Harshall. “I always left our conversations knowing more than I did coming into them”.

Revathy, Systems Engineer: Harshini is thankful to her mentor Revathy for “how she helps me to learn [...] the best way possible to do something and ultimately achieve my goals”.

Nevi, Product Manager: Anni admires her manager Nevi who is always thinking about the team and our customers and has invested in the personal growth and mentorship of interns.

Conner, Systems Engineer: Jonathan is grateful that he was always able to count on Conner for great engineering tips, guidance, and NeoVim wizardry.

Malgorzata, Data Scientist: Jada looks up to Malgorzata for being so welcoming, kind, and funny. She has a great attitude and besides being super knowledgeable, she is also willing to share her expertise and support others!

During our internships, we engaged in Executive fireside chats, diving deep with Cloudflare's top leaders. Each chat was insightful and surprising in a different way, and some of our favorite takeaways were…

John, CTO: Shaheen valued John’s humility in emphasizing daily learning from others at work, stating, “As I grow in my career, I intend to keep a similar attitude and try to learn from those around me by keeping myself grounded.”

Doug Kramer, General Counsel: Emilie valued Doug Kramer's advice on identifying a career "north star" to guide intentions while also recognizing "exit-ramps" or alternative paths that may offer unexpected fulfillment.

Matthew Prince, Co-founder and CEO: Yunfan loved hearing “the story about how Cloudflare developed from a start-up till today”.

Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder and COO: Harsh learned from Michelle about “how they moved across the country, against everyone's advice, to start Cloudflare”, and Mia C. enjoyed learning that “Cloudflare started as a business school project”.

A bonding point for the Intern-ets was our love for snacks! In July, we gathered the Intern-ets together for a virtual snack break. The University team sent out a box featuring snacks from Indonesia, a country none of us had visited (or tried goodies from… yet!). Below you can see us holding up our favorite snacks from the box!

Meanwhile, the on-site interns couldn't get enough of the office snacks. Favorites? Pita chips, Lucky Charms, chocolate almonds, coconut chocolate bars and coconut water. Plus, the Austin and San Francisco offices even have a Sour Patch Kids dispenser! Snack on!

Every day at Cloudflare presented unexpected joys and challenges. Here's what the interns found most surprising:

High Impact: Simon, Emmanuel F. and Maximo were surprised to “[do] such visible and important work as an intern”. Austin agreed, noting “I was treated like any other member of the team [...] It felt like I was working on something important and not just a typical intern project!” Harshini added, “when [colleagues] hear what I am working on they go - ‘that is really cool, I can't wait to see that happen - we need it.’”

Support: Eames “was worried that it would feel like my achievements were the only thing that mattered. But my colleagues always showed concern for how I was feeling and how things were going, and I couldn't be more grateful for that.”

Industry vs Academia: Johnny mentioned “coming from academia, I was amazed by the amount of effort that has been, and is continuing to be, put into the products to really productionize what I have only before seen in research. It is another reminder of the scale in which we work!”

Here are some fun stats from our internship…

• Johnny drove 30 hours from New York to Colorado

• Maximo missed 0 days of going to the Austin office

• Anni drank 86 matcha lattes this summer

• Emilie participated in 38 Cloudfriends calls and coffee chats

• Simon has waited around one week cumulatively for builds to finish

At Cloudflare, our internships aren’t just about work—they're about growth, mentorship, and real impact. We've built more than projects; we've forged lasting relationships. It’s been an unforgettable summer of challenges, bonding, and authentic experiences. For more about our journey this summer, check out our Cloudflare TV segment with Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder and COO.

Finally, we would love to give a huge thanks to our university recruiters Judy, Trang, and Dani for creating such an amazing internship experience for us this summer!

Sign up here to be notified of new grad and internship opportunities for 2024. Cloudflare is also hiring for full-time opportunities: check out open positions and apply today!

I am absolutely thrilled and feel incredibly blessed to have joined Cloudflare as Chief Security Officer (CSO). Cybersecurity has always been my passion and focus of my career. I am grateful to join such a dynamic and innovative team. Cloudflare is a cybersecurity industry leader and offers unmatched technology that is second to none.

I have been a CSO for over 20 years in the financial and private sectors with SVB, HSBC, McAfee, Ameren, and Scottrade. I have been privileged to lead the security teams of some of the world's largest, most complex, and most innovative companies; however, my greatest honor has been working with and collaborating among some of the world's most amazing people. I have learned my dedication, expertise, and passion from my leaders, peers, and teams, which have taught me how to build and lead world-class security programs that protect organizations from the most sophisticated threats. Because security is constantly evolving, the key is, and always will be, to build an active, diverse community of highly empathetic people that will successfully protect the organization.

As I step into my new role as CSO at Cloudflare, I am excited to take on the challenge of defending the company and 20% of all websites. My charter is to protect Cloudflare from sophisticated threats and to promote a culture of innovation that enables us to stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape. By fostering a mindset of creativity and continuous improvement, we will develop solutions that protect our customers from the most complex cybersecurity challenges that significantly impact them.

The last aspect of my charter is to share the Cloudflare story with our customers to ensure they are protected and leverage all of the Cloudflare technology.  We can do this through collaboration and knowledge-sharing with our customers. By sharing the Cloudflare story and collaborating with our customers, we can all help build a better and more secure Internet.

As someone who is passionate about technology, security, and its potential to improve our lives, I knew that I wanted to work for a company that shared those values. So, when I began my job search, I set out to find the best company to work for that aligned with my interests and career goals. After researching and considering many different options, I met with Cloudflare, and I was blown away.

First and foremost, I was drawn to Cloudflare's mission to help create a secure, faster, and more reliable Internet for everyone. I was impressed by their strong mission, direction, and commitment to building a better Internet. As someone who shares their passion for making the Internet a better place, I found it inspiring to join a company with a mission that aligns so closely with my own values.

Another reason I chose to join Cloudflare was its network capabilities and cloud technology. They have built a highly sophisticated and innovative global network that I have not seen matched within the industry. As a CSO, I find Cloudflare in a unique leadership position to protect our customers due to their unmatched capabilities and unique market position. While Cloudflare is already a leader in every space where they operate, they have a significant track record of building on their fantastic platform by continuously improving their technology to be best in class.

In addition to their impressive technology, I was also impressed by their customer base. The most prominent and respected companies in the world use Cloudflare's services, and I am excited to share "How Cloudflare does it" to help our customers be even more successful and give them a unique opportunity to see how we do it internally.

Lastly, the interview process and the people I met at Cloudflare significantly influenced my decision to join the team. Throughout my 17 interviews, I was impressed by the professionalism and passion of the people I met. I connected with each person and was excited by the team's commitment to the company's mission. I am very proud and humbled to join the Cloudflare family! I look forward to hearing from our customers and employees and how I can help them!

Happy International Women’s Day! The global theme for 2023 is #EmbraceEquity, which is part of an ongoing effort to raise awareness around “Why equal opportunities are no longer enough.” Today is a time to highlight achievements made by women, but also an opportunity to become better informed, and collaborate and brainstorm about the path forward.

“People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.” — internationalwomensday.com

Consider taking a few minutes today to learn about pervasive challenges affecting women, including in the workplace. Since unconscious bias is a major driver of hurdles holding women back, it is beneficial for people of all gender identities to educate ourselves about the varied experiences of others.

Here are some resources to get help get you started:

• Recognize the difference between equity and equality and see why striving for equality can interfere with inclusion-related efforts.

• Read highlights from the Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org to examine factors that are holding women back from advancement and in many cases making them decide to leave a company. One notable statistic: “For every 100 men who are promoted from entry-level roles to manager positions, only 87 women are promoted, and only 82 women of color are promoted.”

• Watch a five-minute video of the history of the concept of intersectionality, explained by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term. Intersectionality refers to the “double bind of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice.”

• Better understand challenges within the tech sector in the report What (and Who) is Holding Women Back in Tech? One finding from this survey, conducted by Girls Who Code and Logitech, is that 90% of women report experiencing microaggressions at work. The report describes key career drivers and the importance of communities of support.

Womenflare is a Cloudflare employee resource group (ERG) for women and people who advocate for women. We are an employee-led group that is here to empower, represent, and support.

At Cloudflare, we are continuing our tradition of building community and celebrating women’s achievements together throughout March. We are also encouraging discussion on equity vs. equality and how we can champion equity for ourselves and those around us with these internal events in the weeks ahead:

• Celebrating with comedy: We are kicking things off with some fun and jokes from Laugh.Events! Offering “Laughter as a Service (LaaS),” they will deliver stand-up comedy, musical comedy, and other comedic activities for a celebratory “Workplace Variety Hour.”

• Equity and allyship chats: After our celebrations, we are opening forums to discuss equity and what this means for each of us in our unique intersectionalities. We have invited some of our fellow employee resource group leads from Asianflare, Nativeflare, and Proudflare to share with us and dive into how we can be both supported and supportive.

• Equity leadership panel: Our internal leadership panels were always well received in previous years, so we decided not to mess with a good thing. This year, we will be inviting another group of inspirational women leaders in Cloudflare to share their experiences with us and explore the areas where we can promote equity in the workplace.

• And more: We have so much more planned for March! From Book Club and meetups to Cloudflare TV episodes and networking events, we are partnering across teams to ensure there are plenty of opportunities to participate and join in on the fun and discussions.

No matter how you plan to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, consider how you can do your part to champion an equitable world. Join the #IWD2023 movement — #EmbraceEquity today (and every day)!

Learn more about how we are cultivating community, including through employee resource groups like Womenflare, via our careers page—and check out our open positions.

To read about our progress on the UN Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), download our latest Impact Report.

In this blog post, we’ll highlight a few stories from some of our 17 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), including the most recent, Persianflare. But first, let me start with a personal story.

Do you remember being in elementary school and sitting in a classroom with about 30 other students when the teacher was calling on your classmates to read out loud from a book? The opportunity to read out loud was an exciting moment for many of my peers; one that made them feel proud of themselves. I, on the other hand, was frozen, in a state of panic, worried that I wouldn’t be able to sound out a word or completely embarrass myself by stuttering. I would practice reading the next paragraph in hopes that I wouldn’t mess up when I was called on. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was dyslexic, and I could barely read, especially out loud to a large group of people.

That is where I began to know the feeling of isolation. This feeling compounded year after year, when I wasn’t able to perform the way my peers did. My isolation prevailed from elementary school to middle school, through high school and even into college.

In college, I found a community that changed everything called Eye to Eye - a national non-profit organization that provides mentorship programs for students with learning disabilities. I attended one of their conferences with 200 other students. It was a profound moment when I realized that everyone in the room shared the experience of anxiety and fear around learning. Joining this community made me feel that I was not alone. Community for me is a group of people who have shared experience. Community allowed me to see my learning disability as an asset not a deficit. This is what I think the author, Nilofer Merchant, meant in the 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, when she said "The social object that unites people isn't a company or a product; the social object that most unites people is a shared value or purpose."

When I came to work at Cloudflare, I decided to become an ERG leader for Flarability, which provides a space for discussing disability and accessibility at Cloudflare. The same deep sense of community that I felt at Eye to Eye was available to me when I joined Flarability.

Globally, 85% of the company participates in ERGs and this year alone they hosted over 54 initiatives and events. As the pandemic persisted over the last year, Cloudflare remained a hybrid workforce which posed many challenges for our company culture. ERGs had to rethink the way they foster connection. Today, we are highlighting Persianflare, Afroflare, Greencloud and Desiflare because they have taken different approaches to building community.

Persianflare is our newest ERG, and in a very short amount of time, ERG Leader Shadnaz Nia has already brought together an entire community of folks who have created lasting impact. Here's how…

Persianflare: Amplify the voice of Iranian peopleShadnaz Nia, Solutions Engineer, Toronto

**“**Persianflare is the newest ERG which strives to nurture a community for all Persians and allies, where we perpetuate freedom of speech, proudly celebrate rich Persian heritage, appending growth and Persian convention. We have assembled with a desire to amplify the voice of the Iranian people, and bring awareness to human rights violations there, during unprecedented and unbearable times in history.

Cloudflare’s mission is to build a better Internet and one of our initiatives this year was to support building a better Internet that provides a more private Internet for the people of Iran. At Cloudflare, we are fortunate to have executive leadership that takes action and works tirelessly to provide more uncensored and accessible Internet in countries such as Iran. We’ve done this by offering WARP solutions in native Farsi language for all Persian-speaking users, empowering them to access uncensored information and news, in turn, strengthening the voice of Persian people living in Iran.

This project was accidentally routed to my team by the Product Team when they needed a translator. At the time, myself and other Persian employees were feeling powerless as a result of Mahsa Amini being murdered in the custody of the Iranian morality police. This was the birth of Persianflare. Through this project, I started collaborating with other employees and discovered that many of my colleagues really cared about this cause and wanted to help. Throughout the course of this initiative, we found more Persian employees in other regions and let them know about our progress. Words cannot describe how I felt when the app was released. It was one of the purest moments in my life. By bringing together Persian employees, allies of Persianflare, and the Product Team, this community was able to create real change for the people of Iran. To me, that is the power of community.

We plan to circle together to celebrate the global Human Rights Day on December 10, 2022, to continue discussing and growing our community. As the newest ERG, we are just getting started.”

Afroflare: Sharing experiencesSieh Johnson, Engineering Manager, AustinTrudi Bawah-Atalia, Recruiting Coordinator, London

“Afroflare is a community for People of African Diaspora to build connections while learning from each others’ lives, perspectives and experiences. Our initiatives in 2022 centered on creating and cultivating community by supporting and echoing Black voices and achievements within and outside of Cloudflare. Earlier in the year, given that the pandemic was slowing down but still active, we provided curated content that would allow members and allies to create, contribute and learn about cultures of the African diaspora at their own pace.

For our celebration of US Black History Month, we aggregated lists of Black-owned businesses and non-profit communities in various cities to support. We also hosted internal chats called “The Plug,” which highlight the immense talent of our members at Cloudflare. Lastly, Afroflare worked with allies to present an Allyship workshop called “Celebrating Black Joy- An Upskilling Session for Allies.”

As 2022 progressed, we shifted to a hybrid of in-person and virtual events in order to foster more interaction and strengthen bonds. Our celebration of UK Black History Month included a cross-culture party in our Lisbon office. We collaborated with Latinflare & Wineflare on an International Wine tasting event featuring South African wines, and an African + Caribbean food tasting event called “Taste from Home. We wrapped up the festivities with a Black Woman in Tech panel to discuss bias and how to navigate various obstacles faced by the BIPOC community in tech.

Virtually or in-person, this community has become a family – we laugh together, cry together, teach each other, and continue to grow together year after year. Each member’s experiences and culture are valued as we forge spaces for everyone to feel free to be authentic. Afroflare looks forward to continuing its goals of creating safe spaces, as well as educating, championing, and supporting our members and allies in 2023.”

Greencloud: A more sustainable InternetAnnika Garbers, Product Manager, Georgia

“Greencloud is a coalition of Cloudflare employees who are passionate about the environment. Our vision is to address the climate crisis through an intersectional lens and help Cloudflare become a clear leader in sustainable practices among tech companies. Greencloud was initially founded in 2019 but experienced most of its growth in membership, engagement, and activities after the pandemic started. The group became an outlet for current and new employees to connect on shared passions and channel our COVID-fueled anxieties for the world into productive climate-focused action.

Greencloud’s organizing since 2020 has primarily centered around “two weeks of action.” The first is Impact Week (happening now!), which includes projects driven by Greencloud members to help our customers build a more sustainable Internet using Cloudflare products. The second is Earth Week, scheduled around the global Earth Day celebration in April, which focuses on awareness and education. We’ve leveraged the tools available to Cloudflare employees and our community, like our blog and Cloudflare TV, to share information with a broader audience and on a wider range of topics than would be possible with in-person events. This year, publicly available Earth Week programming included sessions about Cloudflare’s sustainability focus for our hardware lifecycle, an interview with a sustainability-focused Project Galileo participant, a Policy team overview of our sustainability reporting practices, and a conversation about sustainable transportation with our People team. Covering a wide range of topics throughout our events and content created by our members not only helps everyone learn something new, it also reminds us of the importance of embracing and encouraging diverse perspectives in every community. The diversity of the Greencloud collective is a small demonstration of the reality that climate change is only successfully addressed through holistic action by people with many outlooks and skills working together.

As we embrace more flexible modes of work, the Greencloud crew is looking forward to maintaining our virtual events as well as introducing more in-person opportunities to engage with each other and our local communities. Building and maintaining deep connections with each other is key to the momentum and sustainability(!) of this work in the long term.”

Desiflare: South Asian delightsArwa Ginwala, Solutions Engineering Manager, San Francisco

“Our goal for Desiflare is to build a sense of community among Cloudflare employees using the rich South Asian culture as a platform to bring people together. The Desiflare initiatives that had the most impact were in-person events after the two long years of pandemic. People were longing for a sense of community and belonging after months of Zoom fatigue. It was a fresh breath of air to see fellow Desis in person, across multiple Cloudflare offices. Folks hired during the pandemic got an opportunity to come visit the newly-renovated office in San Francisco. Desis enjoyed South Asian food at the Austin office for the first time since Desiflare’s inception. Diwali was celebrated in Singapore and Sydney offices, and the community in London played cricket, a sport very popular and well-loved in the South Asian community. Regardless of country of origin, gender, age or cultural beliefs, and in the presence of a competitive atmosphere, everyone shared and rejoiced with memories from their childhoods.

We realize that Desiflare members have different levels of comfort regarding meeting people in person or traveling for in-person events. But everyone wants to feel a sense of community and connection with people who share the same interests. Keeping this in mind, it was important to organize events where everyone felt included and had a chance to be part of the community based on their preferences. We met virtually for weekly chai time, monthly lunches, and are now organizing virtual jam sessions for many Desis to showcase their talent and enjoy South Asian music regardless of where they are located. The community has been most engaged on the Desiflare chat room. It has provided a platform for discussing common topics that help people feel supported. Desiflare gives a unique opportunity to employees to connect with their culture and roots regardless of their job title and team. It's a way to network cross-functionally, and allows you to bring your whole self to work, which is one of the best things about working at Cloudflare.”

The ERGs at Cloudflare have helped us realize the power of community and how critical it is for hybrid work. What I have learned alongside our ERG leaders is that if we as individuals want to feel connected, understood and seen, our ERG communities are essential. You can check out all the incredible ERGs on the Life at Cloudflare page, and I encourage you to consider starting an ERG at your company.

I am excited to announce that as of November 1, I have joined Cloudflare as Country Manager of South Korea to help build a better Internet and to expand Cloudflare’s growing customer, partner, and local teams in Korea. We just opened a new entity (after making Seoul our 23rd data center, more than 10 years ago)  and I am the first official employee of Cloudflare Korea LLC in Seoul, which is truly a great moment and privilege for me.

I was born in Korea and was educated in Korea until middle school, then I decided to move to Toronto, Canada to study film making to become a movie director. I finished high school and obtained a university degree in Toronto, during which I had the opportunity to be exposed to various cultures, as well as learn and become well-versed in the English language. I think it was a great time to learn how diverse people in the world are. My dream of becoming a movie director has changed over time for many reasons, but I think it is no coincidence that I have a job where I have to produce results while collaborating and orchestrating with many people, much like a movie director.

In my career of about 18 years, I have had various experiences, including pre-sales, support, consultant, and field sales, starting with Java programmer. The lesson from this variety of experiences is that if you work with a sense of ownership all the time, you can be the best in the field, and you can get the best compliments from your customers.

I've worked in a small company where the whole company has been agile, and I've worked in large companies like SAP, Dell, Autodesk, and Akamai, working with many teams. New technology and the best technology are important, but I also learned that the most important thing is the environment where people can work together and have fun, because people make the results after all.

Besides work, I love music. I didn't become a movie director, which was my childhood dream, but I relieve my stress by playing the piano and composing songs. In the past, I made a rock song for one of the companies I worked for, and when an opportunity presented itself,  we had a program where all the employees jumped in and sang my composition together. Unfortunately, I have not had enough time to make a lot of songs now, but if I have a chance, I would love to make a Cloudflare song and hope I can sing it together with my new colleagues.

Korea has one of the highest smartphone and Internet penetration rates in the world. Korea is also one of the countries with the fastest Internet speeds in the world. On the other hand, the pace of cloud transformation, that is making such a big difference to so many companies, is still lagging behind. The reason is that there are many government regulations on public enterprises and finance industries. Fortunately, as the government has recently moved to ease many regulations, the pace of cloud transformation is expected to accelerate in the future.

As cloud transitions accelerate, enterprises need to pay attention to security, and few companies will be able to deploy security as easily and securely in a cloud environment as Cloudflare.

Korea is a country where the economy grows only when it exports a lot. Many startups and chaebol (conglomerate) companies often grow future-oriented industries such as metaverse in Korea first and then expand their business abroad. For customers leading this global industry, Cloudflare will act like a safe highway in an Internet environment. I've come to Cloudflare to be part of this meaningful work.

In addition, Cloudflare Korea has just been launched. Even though we’ve had a presence here through our data center for the last 10 years, there are still many companies that we still need to build relationships with. I want to spread the value of Cloudflare to the Korean market quickly and become a Supercloud evangelist. I would also like to help Korean customers — organizations and businesses across multiple industries — achieve great success and ensure they have the right technology and Internet infrastructure. In the next few years, I will work hard to establish Cloudflare as the most trusted cloud security company in Korea, as well as contribute to expanding the business and creating jobs in the country.

As the first Country Manager of Cloudflare Korea, I am very excited  to work for a company with unlimited growth potential. As the global economy slows down, customers will gravitate towards products and solutions that are more valuable and price competitive. I'm looking forward to meeting and working with more customers that will benefit from all that Cloudflare has to offer.

One of the biggest reasons I chose Cloudflare is that Cloudflare has big dreams and visions. In particular, I think the emergence of R2 will provide an extremely cost-effective solution to enterprises' egress cost concerns, especially in economically challenging times.

In addition, Cloudflare is investing heavily to become the number one Zero Trust player. The VPN market is huge, and it has a lot of challenges (including user experience, speed, and security), and Zero Trust is still in its infancy but already showing its true potential. Cloudflare, which understands and invests in these huge markets, knows where to go in the marketplace.

Finally, the Supercloud is also an area that only Cloudflare can realize. Cloud security and Zero Trust are indispensable areas of the future, and I am very happy to join this futuristic company.

At Cloudflare, we have strived to build a workplace where our entire team feels safe and excited to bring their whole selves to work, so they can do their best work. That’s why we are proud to share that Cloudflare has been named one of the Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces in 2022 by Newsweek and Best Practice Institute (BPI). Most Loved Workplaces recognizes companies where their workers love, and feel in sync with, the company they work for.

With this, and as we’re approaching the end-of 2022, we thought this was a good time to reflect on some of the things that go into being one of these Most Loved Workplaces and just some of what makes up our workplace and culture.

Something that really grounds our entire team is Cloudflare’s mission: to help build a better Internet. When you are solving some of the toughest challenges facing the Internet — helping make the Internet secure, fast, private, and reliable globally — you need a range of talented individuals to do this. The people at Cloudflare are exactly that, and are essential to our impact on the Internet.

The Internet wasn’t built for what it’s being used for today. In order for the Internet to work the way it does today, from powering critical infrastructure, to making it so that a busy working parent can order a healthy dinner right to their home, requires constant innovation on our part to make sure these online services can withstand the demand online, load quick, and not face cyber attacks and breaches. Cloudflare has a significantly large responsibility online, with about 20% of the web running through our network today — and every single team member here is contributing to this.

In addition to the results from Newsweek and BPI, Cloudflare additionally conducted an internal survey of its global team. This presented results of 94% of surveyed employees stating that they are inspired by Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better Internet. At Cloudflare, 92% of employees say their manager treats them with respect and 92% state that their work is important to the company.

“I've worked for so many Fortune 500, top companies in tech, and never have I felt more valued and grown so much than at Cloudflare. I love going to work, love working with my manager and team, we learn so much from each other and are motivated to smash sales goals and grow our presence in the world. ”

“...I love this company, management, and most of all my team. I am proud to be building a better Internet, and will continue to do so for years to come.”

“Honestly it is the best I've ever worked; it is a lot of work, and sometimes it can be stressful, but I'm sure I can count on my manager for support, and they take their time to explain again and again without making me feel bad for asking.”

“Having had the privilege to work at Cloudflare for the past five years, I can genuinely attest that our people are clearly our biggest asset. I personally feel empowered, respected, and yet intellectually challenged daily. It is impressive for any single company to assemble such a diverse and thoughtful group of co-workers. And it all starts with our leadership.”

Cloudflare offers a comprehensive total rewards and benefits package, and invests in supporting team members through a variety of initiatives and programs.

Examples of benefits range — from our commuter benefits program, for employees working in an office or a hybrid role, we help support the transportation costs associated with commuting — to health and family benefits programs including fertility, caregiving, childcare, and family forming/planning, as well as emotional and mental health benefits — and, we encourage everyone to find a comfortable work-life balance by offering a take-what-you-need vacation policy.

One example of programs is Cloudflare’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), employee-led and company-supported groups of underrepresented and/or marginalized employees. These groups are focused on key Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives with leaders, executives, and members for each group, who join together in the workplace based on shared characteristics, life experiences, or interests. ERGs are generally based on creating a community of support and belonging, enhancing career development of their members, and contributing to the development of a more inclusive culture at Cloudflare. Today we have 16 ERGs at Cloudflare ranging from Proudflare, Womenflare, and Afroflare to Cloudflarents and Mindflare (you get the theme!).

What’s been at the center of how we’ve approached supporting our team these past couple years is flexibility and experimentation. Cloudflare’s workplace shifted from completely in-office since the company’s launch and leading up to March 2020, to then an entirely new remote environment that we hadn’t had before. This has been a big experiment for us, and it’s an honor to be recognized among the top workplaces uplifting its people. We recognize that every team’s needs are different and that most of us want some level of flexibility in how and where we work. At Cloudflare, we support a variety of work environments that give teams the opportunity to establish their own optimal working arrangements. Whether that be hybrid, remote, or in-office that fit with their objectives and enable collaboration — each employee has flexibility.

Cloudflare has grown its global team by 93% over the past two years and has overall prioritized the recruitment, retention, as well as success of employees. To give a sense of this, in 2021 we received more than 200,000 competitive applications, extending 1,455 offers — while seeing a 92% acceptance rate across the board, and alongside continuously low attrition rates.

Now approaching the end-of 2022, we have over 3,100 team members globally. As our co-founder, President & COO Michelle Zatlyn says, “Companies are collections of people. One of the best parts of my job is the people I get to work with.” And we are continuing to hire worldwide with hundreds of open positions across the organization ranging from Sales to Engineering. To learn more about the Cloudflare career opportunities, please check out Cloudflare Careers! And an enormous high-five to the entire Cloudflare team for your continuous effort and hand in helping build a better Internet.

“You can accomplish anything if you do it. Nothing will be accomplished unless you do it. If nothing is not accomplished, that’s because no one did it.“— Yozan Uesugi

Long hours and hard work. If you ask anyone in Japan what our work culture is like, chances are, these are the words that will come to mind. Different countries have their own cultures and also specific work habits and ways of having a work-life balance. The pandemic brought everyone (companies and their people) a new reality, new lessons, and new habits. Here at Cloudflare, our thinking around where and how we do our best work has evolved over the course of the pandemic. We care about addressing the diverse needs of our workforce and our policies and benefits are designed to optimize for their flexibility and needs. To that end, Cloudflare Japan is making a few important changes to our employee benefits:

• “take what you need” time off for all our employees

• 16-week gender-neutral paid parental leave

• flexible working hours

First, let’s try to understand a bit of the Japanese work culture. According to Japan’s labor laws, Japanese employed workers are assumed to work a maximum of 8 hours a day, or 40 hours per week. But ask any employed person in Japan and you will soon discover that people work much longer hours than that. A 2015 study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that about 22% of Japanese employees work 50 hours or more each week on average, well above 11% in the U.S., and 6% in Spain. On top of that, people are also less likely to take personal time off. While existing labor laws provide every employed person with at least 10 days of annual leave (+1 day for every year of service, usually capped at 20 days), a 2017 General Survey on Working Conditions published by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare found that on average, people only actually took 8.8 days of annual leave per year.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and things started to change. With restrictions put in place, a lot of us had no choice but to work from home, a concept that’s completely foreign to the Japanese work culture. And now two years into the pandemic, there has been a shift in the Japanese way of working. In a recent Zero Trust survey that Cloudflare conducted in Japan, 74% of IT and cybersecurity decision makers said their organization will be implementing a combination of return-to-office and work-from-home. This means that the future of work in Japan is flexible.

While we encourage our teams to always get their work across the finish line, we also appreciate the value and importance of having personal time to be able to spend with loved ones, take up a hobby, or simply for rest and relaxation. We believe that time away from work helps you be better at work. Our time away from work policies are designed for that and reflect the reality that technology has enabled us to be more mobile and flexible in the 21st century.

On parental leave, we strongly believe that parents should have equal opportunity to bond with their new family member, and don’t believe in forcing a parent to designate themselves as a “primary” or “secondary” caregiver. We believe these designations create a false dichotomy that does not reflect the modern family, nor reflect our values of diversity and equality; especially when we know that these designations typically disadvantage the careers of women more than men in the workplace.

Lastly, we remain committed to providing great physical spaces for our employees to work, collaborate, and celebrate in, while they’re in the office. While remote work is currently still the norm, it will be up to teams and individuals to decide what works best for them for the task at hand. People may wish to come into our offices to meet with their colleagues, socialize, or join on-site workshops, but then choose to do their quiet focus time work from home. As such, we just completely redesigned and renovated our offices in San Francisco and London —  starting with these offices with experimentation in-mind and with the purpose of reimagining our other global offices. Our way of working has changed, and as such our spaces should support this shift, to be a place where teams can come together and collaborate most effectively.

Cloudflare has had a longstanding presence in Japan, expanding our network into Tokyo in 2010, just months after launching. Today, we have seven points of presence across four cities, and we also announced our Tokyo office in 2020.

Also, it’s important to mention that in Q4 2021, Cloudflare blocked an average of 1.9 billion attacks per day in Japan. That number has grown to 3.8 billion attacks per day blocked by Cloudflare in Q1 2022, an increase of 100% since the previous quarter.

My goal when I joined Cloudflare almost six months ago remains the same — to help customers in Japan accelerate their digital transformation, that will in turn help improve Japan’s competitiveness in the world. In order to do this, we need to continue to provide a great work environment and build a great team. And we’re just getting started!

We are actively recruiting in Japan and have many open roles across different functions. If you’d like to join us in our mission to help build a better Internet, come talk to us!

I am excited to announce that I have joined Cloudflare as Managing Director for the Middle East and Turkey (MET) region. Having worked in the domain of cyber security for more than two decades, I can see that Cloudflare is genuine in its mission of building a better Internet that is fast, safe and reliable for everyone. Being part of this journey that touches everyone’s life is surely an exciting thing to do, and I look forward to putting my experience in play towards successfully achieving this goal.

Cloudflare has been associated with delivering fast content over cloud in a most reliable and secure manner, accounting for at least 20% of the global Internet traffic. Cloudflare can cater for and support all types of organizations (businesses and public sector) including those with a social mission. The Middle East and Turkey as an emerging market is characterized by a relatively young population, with 70% of it being under the age of 30. This dynamic youth segment has an insatiable demand for both content and knowledge. To that extent, there has been a rapid uptake in Internet use, and digital transformation initiatives have significantly accelerated over the past couple of years; this trend represents an opportunity for Cloudflare to add considerable value to regional enterprises and in doing so, increase its footprint and market share.

Personally, building a regional presence and delivering business growth for global software and technology providers is something that I've always enjoyed doing throughout my career and I look forward to helping Cloudflare successfully establish the right level of presence in this fast-growing and dynamic market.

I join Cloudflare with over two decades of experience, mostly in the cybersecurity and software industry, where over the past years I helped global technology providers establish and expand presence and operation in the emerging markets, particularly in the Middle East and Turkey. Prior to joining Cloudflare, I was the Managing Director and Head of Sales for Emerging Markets at CyberRes, the cybersecurity line of business at MicroFocus, managing the sales and business development across the Middle East, Africa, Brazil, Russia, CIS and CEE. Before that I led StarLink Value Added Distribution as their CEO across a 22 country operation, managing their annual business of close to $500M. In addition, I held several leadership positions at major technology vendors such as Symantec, BlueCoat, Fortinet and CyberGuard.

I enjoy launching operations from inception in the region. Building successful teams that can deliver future incremental growth and objectives and supporting our customers is an exciting challenge. Moreover, the MET region made up of 13 countries with fast-growing and innovation-driven economies presents a unique growth opportunity for Cloudflare to tap into.

I can confidently say that the Middle East and Turkey markets are nowadays at the forefront of technology and early adopters of disruptive technologies such as cloud on a global scale.

This is being driven by many factors such as Digital Transformation where several countries have embraced ambitious programs transforming them into true digital economies. Cloud uptake has accelerated over the past few years in the region and the necessary regulatory frameworks and related compliance policies are now in place to propel enterprises into the next phase of leveraging the benefits of cloud. This transformation is further accelerated as earlier mentioned, by a mostly young and content demanding population-that content being gaming, entertainment, educational, sports or online retail.

The recent pandemic has for sure played a major role in building up this momentum and increasing the urgency in speeding up such a transition.

The parallel increase of cyber threats and associated breaches, puts Cloudflare in an unparalleled and unique position to deliver the required content in a reliable, fast and secure manner to individuals, businesses and public sector alike, elevating the levels of productivity and performance in addition to reducing complexity for users.

To do that, Cloudflare has built a global network and infrastructure across 275 cities around the world with 27 in the MET region, delivering the same connectivity at 50ms performance for more than 95% of customers. The innovation path is stunning. Not only do we provide best in class cyber security solutions with Cloudflare’s SASE security platform, Cloudflare One, a Zero Trust network-as-a-service platform that dynamically connects users to enterprise resources, with identity-based security controls delivered close to users, wherever they are, but we also offer an open strong developer platform with Cloudflare Workers. As we just had our Platform Week, I invite you to check our latest announcements.

Having spoken to so many customers in the region, I understand that nowadays more than ever, they need to be able to grow their operations by focusing on their core mission without having to worry about their technology. Cloudflare appears to me as one of the most innovative customer-centric companies in the market. More than just technology, we are on a mission to help to build a fast, reliable and secure Internet for a maximum number of people, businesses, and public organizations.

I look forward to contributing towards the future of digital transformation in the Middle East and Turkey, while delivering solutions that will support all the innovative projects that are already on their way or in the pipeline.

Cloudflare has an exceptional company culture with key values such as diversity, principle, collaboration, innovation and transparency. One of my goals is to build a successful team through empowering current team members and attracting future talents that would all contribute towards this journey. Therefore, I encourage anyone sharing the same ambitions and interested in joining our winning team to keep track of our new roles by exploring open positions

I am extremely proud to launch our regional base out of Dubai, to be followed by additional regional expansions in the future. Currently, Cloudflare has 27 data centers distributed across major cities in the MET region, and we have plans to add more in the near future such as the Jeddah datacenter recently announced. All this to cope with the growth in demand that we are forecasting and to help us position Cloudflare as the brand of choice in the region.