CLOUDFLARE marks a year since launching its 1.1.1[.]1 interns programme and reports notable progress towards its target of 1,111 interns in 2026. To date, the company has hosted 750 internships across 48 teams in nine offices, including Austin, San Francisco, London, Lisbon, New York, Singapore, Bengaluru, Washington DC, and Sydney. From day one, interns were embedded in active teams and tasked with delivering real outputs, whether that be a shipped product improvement, a new process, or new infrastructure.
The initiative spans engineering and non‑engineering roles, with interns contributing to internal projects that have broader impact.
AI played a central role in the modernisation effort, but it did not replace accountability or mentorship. Interns used AI to navigate unfamiliar codebases, compare requirements with implementation, prototype ideas, automate repetitive work, and accelerate from questions to working solutions.
Several concrete results are highlighted: Aashi’s Cache Transcoding project enhances cache capacity by compressing eligible assets with Zstandard before disk write, with initial tests showing substantial on‑disk size reductions; Noah helped make EmDash’s CMS more robust, contributing to the EmDash 1.0 release; Tiago and Sophie advanced post‑quantum visibility for customers by mapping cryptography across codebases and enabling per‑connection post‑quantum insights in Logpush, Log Explorer, and HTTP Traffic Analytics.
Other interns measured network practices and advocated fixes for BGP origins. The piece notes that interns also contribute during Birthday Week launches, and that many interns are returning as full‑time staff as the programme expands and matures.