Principal Solutions Architect - SAARC

About Us At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers millions of websites and other Internet properties for customers ranging from individual bloggers to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare all have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in. Available Locations: Bengaluru/Mumbai/New Delhi About the Role As a Principal Solutions Architect, you'll be a trusted advisor to Cloudflare's most strategic enterprise customers across the Asia Pacific region. You will work at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and executive influence, helping organisations in industries such as financial services, government, and telecommunications navigate complex digital transformation journeys using Cloudflare's platform. You'll speak the "customer language", understand the CxO mindset, and influence technology decisions at the intersection of risk, resilience, and innovation. Whether it's advising a CISO on a Zero Trust security strategy, helping a CIO rationalise their network architecture, or working with engineering leadership on edge-native application modernisation, you'll help our most important customers reimagine how the Internet works for them and position Cloudflare as the foundational platform for that future. You'll be embedded in account planning with our sales and solutions engineering teams, operating proactively across the full customer lifecycle; from early strategic discovery through to long-term platform adoption and expansion. As a Principal Solutions Architect, you'll also play a significant role in raising the architectural capability of the broader Solutions Engineering organisation across APAC. What You’ll Do • Own long-term executive relationships across Cloudflare's most strategic APAC accounts; engaging CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs on their multi-year technology agendas and positioning Cloudflare as a foundational platform, not a point solution. • Design and facilitate executive vision-setting and architecture workshops that produce tangible outcomes: multi-year roadmaps, reference architectures, and business cases co-developed with customers' enterprise architects and engineering leadership. • Translate industry trends like Zero Trust, Digital Sovereignty, AI workload security, cloud-to-edge migration into actionable architectural strategies tailored to each customer's business context and regulatory environment. • Guide clients across the full engagement lifecycle; from strategic discovery and architecture design through proof of concept, value realisation, and expansion planning while proactively partnering with the Sales and Solutions Engineering team to surface architectural opportunities before deals are formally scoped. • Elevate the architectural capability of the broader APAC Solutions Engineering team by developing reusable workshop frameworks, reference architectures, and best practices that others can apply independently; and by mentoring Solutions Engineers in senior stakeholder engagement. • Represent Cloudflare externally at industry events, executive roundtables, and sector forums as a credible peer to enterprise architects and technology leaders; produce content: white papers, architectural guidance that establishes Cloudflare's voice on key transformation themes across the region. What Success Looks Like • In your first 6 months: • You've established trusted advisor relationships with senior technical and business stakeholders across 3-5 of Cloudflare's most strategic APAC accounts. • You've designed and facilitated 2-3 executive vision-setting or architecture workshops that have resulted in documented multi-year roadmap alignment with Cloudflare embedded as a core platform component. • You've shaped at least one strategic engagement where you've connected Cloudflare's developer and edge compute capabilities to a customer's application modernisation or AI strategy; demonstrating platform breadth beyond security alone. • You've contributed at least one reusable asset to the APAC SE team; a workshop framework, reference architecture, or architectural playbook that others can apply independently. What We’re Looking For • 12+ years of experience in technical presales, enterprise architecture, or IT leadership (e.g., Chief Architect, CTO, CISO). • A genuine ability to operate at two levels simultaneously: credible in a boardroom conversation about digital strategy, and capable of going deep on architecture design with engineering teams. • Demonstrated experience leading executive-level workshops, technology strategy sessions, or architectural visioning engagements with tangible business outcomes. • Strong understanding of transformation priorities relevant to APAC enterprises: Zero Trust architecture, cloud and network modernisation, digital sovereignty and data residency, AI infrastructure, and application performance at scale. • Experience with modern application architecture patterns (microservices, APIs, event-driven systems, CI/CD, serverless and edge compute). • A track record of proactively contributing to pipeline and account expansion through architectural influence — not just responding to requests. • Proven ability to enable and elevate peers: you've built frameworks, run internal enablement, or mentored others at scale. • Confident, compelling communicator in both executive business settings and technical deep dives and comfortable representing Cloudflare publicly at industry events. • Bonus: Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks (TOGAF), security standards (NIST SP 800-207, ISO 27001), and IT risk management principles relevant to regulated industries. Preferred Qualifications • Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Security, or related field. • Experience in regulated industries (FSI, Government, Telco) or complex multi-cloud/hybrid environments. • Hands-on technical curiosity: you stay current across networking, cloud infrastructure, application security, and developer platforms; not because the job requires it, but because you find it genuinely interesting. • Prior experience in a role that required navigating cultural and linguistic diversity across multiple APAC markets. What Makes Cloudflare Special? We’re not just a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company. We’re a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company with a soul. Fundamental to our mission to help build a better Internet is protecting the free and open Internet. Project Galileo: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries with powerful tools to defend themselves against attacks that would otherwise censor their work, technology already used by Cloudflare’s enterprise customers--at no cost. Athenian Project: In 2017, we created the Athenian Project to ensure that state and local governments have the highest level of protection and reliability for free, so that their constituents have access to election information and voter registration. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states. 1.1.1.1: We released 1.1.1.1 to help fix the foundation of the Internet by building a faster, more secure and privacy-centric public DNS resolver. This is available publicly for everyone to use - it is the first consumer-focused service Cloudflare has ever released. Here’s the deal - we don’t store client IP addresses never, ever. We will continue to abide by our privacy commitment and ensure that no user data is sold to advertisers or used to target consumers. Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you! Please note that applicants who progress to the offer stage of the interview process may be asked to attend an in-person interview within one of the Cloudflare Offices or Cloudflare Hubs. More details about this will be available at that stage of the interview process. This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Please note that any offer of employment may be conditioned on your authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export laws without sponsorship for an export license. Cloudflare is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and place great value in both diversity and inclusiveness. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to their, or any other person's, perceived or actual race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law. We are an AA/Veterans/Disabled Employer. Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job. Examples of reasonable accommodations include, but are not limited to, changing the application process, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment. If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact us via e-mail at hr@cloudflare.com or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.