Principal People Team Business Partner - M&A / Strategy

About the role

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: Austin, TX or San Francisco, CA Position Overview: We are seeking a high-velocity, strategic People M&A Leader to own the human side of our mergers and acquisitions end-to-end. In this role, you will be the single designated point person (DRI) and strategic counterpart to our Corporate Development team. You will own the People lifecycle for all deals-from early-stage confirmatory due diligence through post-close integration. Acting as the ultimate "Hub to the Spokes," you will translate deal rationale into practical execution strategies, coordinating fluidly across Recruiting, Total Rewards, People Operations, Workplace Immigration, and Employment Legal. This is a builder role for someone who thrives under compressed timelines, loves creating order out of ambiguity, and is obsessed with delivering a world-class onboarding experience for newly acquired teams.

Responsibilities

• Corporate Development Partnership & Diligence
• Serve as the primary People team representative alongside Corporate Development and Legal from deal kickoff through close.
• Lead rapid-fire HR due diligence to assess target company culture, compensation structures, and compliance risks.
• Evaluate technical talent density and provide critical input into deal structures, focus areas for retention pools, and offer letters.
• Partner with finance and legal to analyze equity structures, ensuring seamless alignment on equity rollover mechanics and cash/stock retention incentives.
• Cross-Functional Orchestration (The Hub to the Spokes)
• Mobilize and quarterback cross-functional People teams (Recruiting, Comp, People Ops, Immigration, Payroll) to ensure workstreams are perfectly sequenced (e.g., ensuring visa/immigration verifications clear before offer letters drop).
• Build the infrastructure, checklists, and automated workflows that don't exist yet to scale our M&A engine.
• Identify recurring failure modes across deals and implement upstream fixes to continuously optimize our playbooks.
• Integration & Elite Talent Retention
• Provide a "white-glove" experience to incoming talent, serving as their primary advocate, guide, and escalation point as they navigate our culture and systems.
• Partner with leadership and Internal Comms to execute empathetic change management, addressing workforce anxiety through transparent communications, FAQs, and town halls.
• Design and execute organizational mapping and day-1 onboarding schedules to ensure acquired technical teams maintain momentum and feel integrated from day one.
• Qualifications & Requirements:
• Experience: 6-10+ years of experience across People Operations, HRBP roles, or Program Management, with at least 3+ years directly owning People/HR workstreams for M&A transactions in high-growth tech environments.
• Startup Agility: Proven track record of building 0-to-1 processes. You excel in fast-moving, unstructured environments where templates are built on the fly.
• Execution Under Pressure: Outstanding project management skills; calm under pressure and capable of handling highly confidential data and compressed, unpredictable deal timelines.
• Technical & Core HR Fluency: Solid foundational understanding of employment legal basics, high-growth compensation structures, and visa/immigration complexities (critical for international or highly technical talent).
• Influence Without Authority: Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills. Ability to ear

Benefits

Your Match

How well this role fits your profile.

Company Intel

What employees say

Worked at Cloudflare? Share your experience