Chief of Staff

Available Locations: Austin, TX
About the role:
The Chief of Staff role will be a critical partner to support leadership, responsible for driving strategic planning, operational excellence, and data-driven decision-making to accelerate the growth and success of our support organization. This role requires a leader who can seamlessly blend strategy with execution, build robust processes, and foster strong cross-functional collaboration across product, engineering, sales, marketing, finance, and customer success to drive product adoption and growth.
Turn strategy into coordinated execution across Support, Product, Engineering, Success, Sales, and Finance. Keep the rhythm of business tight, the story clear, and the priorities stable. Partner closely with the VP of Operations, who owns day‑to‑day delivery, workforce management, and operational outcomes.
This is not the VP of Operations, a program manager running the queues, or an executive assistant. This is an executive operator who aligns priorities, drives follow‑through, raises clarity, and keeps the system honest.
Responsibilities
Strategic Planning & Execution:

• Partner with Product Leadership to define and operationalize the multi-year strategy for the Application Performance group.
• Identify, scope, and drive critical strategic cross functional initiatives and special projects to accelerate growth.

Business Performance & Insights:

• Track and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) for the Application Services teams.
• Develop and drive dashboards and reporting mechanisms to provide actionable insights for growth to product leadership and other stakeholders.
• Lead regular business reviews (MBRs/QBRs) for the product group, highlighting performance trends, risks, and opportunities.

Operational Excellence & Process Improvement:

• Identify and implement process improvements to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Application Performance product lifecycle
• Streamline and optimize go-to-market (GTM) processes, including product launch readiness, sales enablement coordination, and feedback loops.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to optimize resource allocation and project prioritization frameworks.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Alignment:

• Act as a key liaison between the support and other functions including Product, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Engineering, Finance, and Legal.

Executive operating cadence

• Run the weekly, monthly, and quarterly business rhythm. Staff the VP for decision forums, reviews, and customer briefings.
• Maintain the single source of truth for priorities, owners, dates, and risks. Drive follow‑through and close loops.

Strategic planning and alignment

• Translate strategy into a clear plan with objectives, success measures, and interlocks.
• Keep Support plans aligned with Product roadmaps, readiness, and launch calendars.
• Prepare board‑ and exec‑ready narratives that connect goals to results.

Cross‑functional coordination

• Orchestrate the work between Support, Product, Engineering, SRE, Security, Billing, Sales, and Success.
• Unblock decisions quickly. Escalate thoughtfully. Track commitments to closure.

Business reviews and communications

• Build the VP's weekly packet. Publish crisp updates for execs and field leaders.
• Standardize customer‑safe incident and postmortem communications with the VP of Operations and Support Engineering.

Hiring, org health, and enablement

• Partner with the VP and People team on headcount plans, hiring loops, and onboarding for managers and leads.
• Raise the bar on data literacy and written communication with short training, templates, and examples.

Special projects

• Handle time‑bound projects for the VP that require problem framing, analysis, and structured execution.
• Stand up lightweight governance for new initiatives until the VP of Operations or program owners take full control.

How you will partner with the VP of Operations

• You own alignment, governance, communications, executive prep, and cross‑functional coordination.
• VP of Operations owns staffing, queues, SLAs, backlog plans, playbooks, tooling, and day‑to‑day results.
• You co‑design plans and reviews so that the right metrics and narratives are presented, and the right owners drive outcomes.

What success looks like
30 days

• Operating cadence live with clear agendas, inputs, and outputs.
• Priority list and risks published with owners and dates.
• Weekly executive packet and communication templates in use.

60 days

• Strategy, OKRs, and cross‑functional interlocks aligned and tracked.
• Business reviews produce decisions that stick.
• Hiring plan, interview loop, and onboarding plans ready for key roles.

90 days

• Predictable execution across top initiatives.
• Clear visibility on Support health, with accurate metrics and written narratives.
• Fewer surprises. Faster decisions. Better cross‑team trust.

Desirable Skills, Knowledge, and Experience:

• 8+ years of experience in chief of staff, business operations, strategy, support operations, or a similar role within high growth technology companies (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS preferred).
• 8+ years in a leadership role, with a proven track record of influencing senior stakeholders and driving complex cross functional initiatives.
• Experience working directly with product and engineering organizations is essential.
• Specific experience in areas like application delivery, CDN, cloud networking, or performance monitoring is a strong plus.
• Strategic Thinker: Ability to see the big picture, develop data-driven strategic plans, and translate strategy into actionable operational plans.
• Operational Rigor: Expertise in process design, optimization, and program management. Ability to build scalable systems and processes.
• Financial Acumen: Understanding of SaaS business models, P&L management, financial forecasting, and KPI development.
• Exceptional Communicator: Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills. Ability to articulate complex issues clearly and concisely to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Cross-Functional Leader: Proven ability to build strong relationships, influence without authority, and drive alignment across diverse teams and stakeholders.
• Results-Oriented: High sense of urgency and a bias for action. Track record of delivering tangible business outcomes.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Engineering, or a related field.
• MBA or equivalent advanced degree is highly preferred
• PMO certification or equivalent is a strong plus.

Salary
Salary will be discussed with the Recruiter during the interview process.
Equity
This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare's equity plan.
Benefits
Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family. Our benefits programs can help you pay health care expenses, support caregiving, build capital for the future and make life a little easier and fun! The below is a description of our benefits for employees in the United States, and benefits may vary for employees based outside the U.S.
Health & Welfare Benefits

• Medical/Rx Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Commuter Spending Accounts
• Fertility & Family Forming Benefits
• On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program
• Global Travel Medical Insurance

Financial Benefits

• Short and Long Term Disability Insurance
• Life & Accident Insurance
• 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
• Employee Stock Participation Plan

Time Off

• Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave
• Leave programs, including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave