← All roles

Principal Presales Customer Engineer (based in Canberra)

Cloudflare· Solution Engineering
Apply on company site
Hybrid (Canberra)Full-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

Principal Presales Customer Engineer (based in Canberra) at Cloudflare. Acts as a quota-carrying technical advisor and architect across the customer journey from pre-sales validation through onboarding, deployment architecture, and expansion, with AI-augmented workflows to improve efficiency.

Responsibilities

  • Technical Validation: Lead technical deep-dive discovery with Account Executives, map customer infrastructure (DNS, CDN, Zero Trust, Network Security, Workers) to Cloudflare architectures; define PoCs/Technical Validation plans; deliver tailored presentations and demonstrations; address objections and security/compliance questions; determine deployment strategy within proposals.
  • Customer Adoption & Value Realization: Oversee onboarding and implementation as primary executive/engineering contact; design migration and onboarding blueprints (e.g., DNS migrations, Zero Trust rollouts, WAF tuning); lead customer engineering teams through configuration best practices; monitor health and telemetry to ensure time-to-value; manage risk and bottlenecks.
  • Commercial Accountability & Expansion: Carry a variable quota tied to new business and/or account growth; ensure platform adoption, retention of revenue, and identify cross-sell/up-sell opportunities; lead QBRs translating capabilities to ROI for executives.
  • Trusted Advisory: Maintain deep ongoing relationships with stakeholders from onboarding to renewal/expansion; provide architecture, AI control layers, security posture, and deployment confidence guidance; identify risks and remediation strategies.
  • AI Orchestration & Workflow Automation: Leverage AI agents/LLMs to automate RFP responses, sandbox provisioning, telemetry monitoring, and documentation; reclaim time for strategic advisory.
  • Education & Enablement: Collaborate with Enablement Team to create and govern technical resources; document SOPs, architectural best practices, and technical guides for internal teams and customers.

Qualifications

  • Experience in a customer-facing technical role (Solutions Engineering, Customer Engineering, Professional Services, Sales Engineering, Technical Account Management, or Forward Deployed Engineer) with level varying by seniority.
  • Architectural mindset to whiteboard, design, and articulate complex enterprise network and security architectures.
  • Strong consultative/advisory skills to translate technical concepts into business outcomes for engineers and C-level executives.
  • Commercial mindset with experience in quota-carrying or revenue-aligned environments; understanding SaaS metrics and enterprise sales cycles.
  • Excellent communication and stakeholder management to bridge technical details and executive strategy.
  • Technical breadth in at least four areas: Internet fundamentals (networking/DNS/HTTPs), Security (WAF, Zero Trust, SASE), Performance (caching, TLS, HTTP/2), AI proficiency (prompt engineering, LLMs, workflow automation), Coding/Scripting (Python/JavaScript/Bash/Lua/Go), Developer Platform Fluency (REST/GraphQL APIs, SDKs, IaC, CI/CD, observability).
  • Strongly Preferred Qualifications: Technical Enablement (workshops/docs/onboarding), Applied AI knowledge (LLM orchestration, RAG), Regulatory knowledge (PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2), Hyperscaler/Digital Native background.

Skills

Required:Technical Validation and PoCsArchitectural DesignExecutive CommunicationQuota/Revenue Acumen
Nice to have:Programming/ScriptingDeveloper Platform Fluency
Last updated Sep 2, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Cloudflare

Connect, protect, and build everywhere | Cloudflare

Make employees, applications and networks faster and more secure everywhere, while reducing complexity and cost.

NetworkingSecurityPerformanceDeveloper PlatformAI
Company profileWebsite

More open roles at Cloudflare