Interconnection Manager

Available Location: London, UK; Lisbon, Portugal; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangalore, India
About the Role:
The Interconnection Manager within the Network Strategy team will play a crucial role in optimizing and expanding Cloudflare's global network connectivity, encompassing both external interconnections and the internal backbone. This position involves strategic planning, relationship management, and technical execution to ensure efficient and cost-effective interconnection with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), and other network partners, as well as the strategic development and management of Cloudflare's backbone network.
Responsibilities
Strategic Backbone Management:

• Develop and execute strategies for the expansion, optimization, and maintenance of Cloudflare's global backbone network.
• Plan and manage backbone capacity, ensuring scalability and high performance to support Cloudflare's services.
• Analyze backbone traffic patterns and performance metrics to identify areas for improvement and optimization.
• Advise in budget planning cycles to ensure proper resource allocation for backbone growth and scaling.
• Interconnection Management:
• Formulate and execute strategic plans to optimize traffic flow across Cloudflare's network, balancing traffic between backbone, partner, transit, IX, and peer connections.
• Develop and maintain a comprehensive understanding of regional and global interconnection landscapes.
• Lead negotiations for interconnection agreements and partnerships.
• Relationship Management:
• Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with ISPs, IXPs, and other network partners.
• Act as the regional expert for interconnection relationships, focusing on improving availability, capacity, effectiveness, and cost efficiency.
• Technical Execution:
• Manage the implementation of interconnection projects, ensuring timely and efficient execution.
• Monitor network performance and utilization, identifying and resolving potential bottlenecks.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration:
• Collaborate with key internal stakeholders (Data Center Strategy, Network Engineering, Capacity Planning, Infrastructure Operations) to ensure alignment on network strategy and implementation.
• Engage with internal stakeholders to plan requirements and deliver cross-functional projects, clearly communicating with project stakeholders.
• Industry Engagement:
• Represent Cloudflare in industry forums and conferences, contributing to the development of best practices and standards.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in network infrastructure, ideally within a Telco, ISP, CDN, or cloud environment.
• Strong understanding of networking protocols and technologies, including BGP, DWDM, and IP networking.
• Proven experience in negotiating and managing interconnection agreements.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Experience with capacity planning, cost modeling, and operations research.