# Principal Product Manager

**Company:** [Tailscale](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/tailscale)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Product Management
**Salary:** $197k – $246k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** wireguard, derp, nat traversal, subnet routing, DNS, network segmentation, BGP, mpls, ebpf, ipsec, openvpn, Kubernetes, cli, slos
**Posted:** 2026-08-05

> Leads the vision, roadmap, and customer-facing reliability strategy for a large-scale networking dataplane spanning relays, routers, connectors, and operator tooling. Requires 10+ years of product management experience in networking, edge, transport, or infrastructure products and deep networking fluency.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

- Set the vision and roadmap for the Tailscale dataplane, including WireGuard behavior, DERP relay expansion and capacity, subnet routers, exit nodes, and client-side networking.
- Define performance and reliability as customer-facing product requirements.
- Own connectivity product strategy end to end, including regional expansion, capacity planning, relay health observability, enterprise and private DERP/Peer Relay offerings, and sovereign or regulated deployment requirements.
- Drive the roadmap for subnet routers, exit nodes, and Peer Relays, including deployment topology, high-availability modes, route management UX, and production operational tooling.
- Own the application-layer connectivity surface, including App Connectors, Services, DNS, and network segmentation.
- Own the operator control surface used by network engineers and IT administrators to configure, segment, monitor, and troubleshoot networks at scale across the admin console and CLI.
- Partner with the embedded Network Features design lead to turn networking systems into clear product experiences.
- Own connectivity behavior across NAT types, operating systems, mobile carriers, enterprise firewalls, and complex customer networks.
- Partner with GTM, Customer Success, and Solutions Engineering on production traffic commitments, regulated deployments, and strategic enterprise deals.
- Represent the dataplane externally to enterprise customers, cloud partners, infrastructure vendors, and the networking community.

## Requirements

- 10+ years of product management experience owning networking, transport, edge, or infrastructure products at scale.
- Experience with products such as CDNs, edge platforms, SD-WAN, overlay networks, cloud networking, service mesh, API gateways, DNS/traffic management, or identity-aware proxies.
- Deep networking fluency across routing, NAT traversal, MTU/MSS, congestion, latency, packet loss, overlay routing, proxies, connectors, DNS, and network segmentation.
- Ability to engage engineers across networking and application-layer teams as a peer.
- Demonstrated ability to define performance commitments and customer-facing SLOs and operate under production expectations.

## Nice to Have

- Familiarity with VPN and tunneling protocols such as WireGuard, IPsec, and OpenVPN.
- Familiarity with low-level networking stacks, including kernel, eBPF, and userspace technologies.
- Experience operating globally distributed infrastructure POPs, relays, and edge nodes, including capacity planning and regional expansion.
- Familiarity with subnet routing, BGP, MPLS, cloud VPC peering, or data residency constraints.
- Experience with application-layer connectivity, including service mesh, API gateways, DNS, proxies/connectors, or network segmentation and policy.
- Experience building admin console and CLI control surfaces for configuring and troubleshooting networks at scale.
- Background in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, or government.
- Public technical writing, conference talks, or open-source networking contributions.
- Hands-on experience with Tailscale at work or home.

## Compensation and Benefits

- US base salary range: **$197,000–$246,000 USD**. Individual offers may vary based on experience and skill set.
- Compensation includes base salary, equity, and comprehensive benefits.
- Health, vision, dental, and other group benefits with no waiting period.
- Remote-first work environment with virtual and in-person social events and a corporate co-working program.
- Employer-funded retirement contributions, matching employee contributions dollar-for-dollar up to a maximum annual employer contribution equal to 0.75% of eligible compensation.
- Annual company retreat, team off-sites, and support for intentional in-person connection.
- $1,500 USD annually for professional development.

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