Manager, Developer Relations - Tailscale

About the Role

Tailscale is looking for an experienced Manager, Developer Relations Engineering to lead a team of technical builders who help developers discover, understand, adopt, and build with Tailscale. You will be accountable for turning Tailscale’s technology into compelling developer experiences—from integrations and example applications to demos, tutorials, open-source projects, and technical content—that drive meaningful developer and business outcomes.

This is a player-coach engineering leadership role that combines team leadership with hands-on technical execution. You’ll lead Tailscale’s Developer Relations Engineering team while continuing to build yourself: developing integrations, demos, example applications, technical prototypes, workshops, and educational experiences that show developers what is possible with Tailscale. You’ll help the team identify the highest-leverage developer problems to solve and turn successful experiments into repeatable programs.

This role partners closely with Product, Engineering, Growth, Content, Sales, Customer Success, and the broader Marketing team. You’ll maintain a clear technical roadmap for the team, surface developer friction and emerging use cases back into the product organization, and build the systems and measurement practices needed to understand which DevRel investments are driving adoption.

We’re looking for someone with strong engineering and technical credibility, excellent product judgment, and a track record of turning developer insight into technical experiences and projects that make complex products easier to understand and adopt.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead Tailscale’s Developer Relations Engineering team and roadmap, translating company, product, and developer priorities into a focused set of technical projects and programs.
• Manage and develop a high-performing team of Developer Relations Engineers. Set clear expectations, give team members meaningful technical ownership, provide strong coaching and feedback, and help both senior and developing talent increase their impact.
• Lead the team in building high-quality technical experiences including integrations, example applications, open-source projects, demos, workshops, reference architectures, tutorials, and other developer tooling that helps developers quickly understand what they can build with Tailscale.
• Identify and personally contribute to high-leverage technical projects. This is a player-coach role: you should be comfortable opening an IDE, building a prototype, reviewing code, debugging an integration, or creating a working demo alongside the team.
• Serve as a visible technical voice for Tailscale through hands-on work such as videos, presentations, demos, integrations, workshops, and community engagement.
• Ensure DevRel eng work is technically accurate, engaging, relevant to its intended audience, and aligned with current product positioning.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Growth, Content, Sales, and Customer Success to coordinate launches, educational initiatives, and developer feedback. Influence product strategy by identifying developer workflows and ecosystem opportunities where Tailscale can create differentiated value, and work with Product and Engineering leaders to validate and prioritize those opportunities. Act as the senior DevRel partner for major launches and strategic bets.
• Define, track, and regularly report on DevRel eng performance, including audience growth, engagement, product activation, integration adoption, and contribution to the self-serve funnel.
• Use qualitative developer insight and performance data to prioritize programs, improve execution, and demonstrate the value of DevRel eng investments.

What We Are Looking For

• 6+ years of relevant experience in Developer Relations, developer advocacy, engineering, or a related field.
• 2+ years of experience managing, coaching, or leading technical contributors and scaling a DevRel or similar function.
• Strong software engineering foundation. You should be comfortable writing and reviewing production-quality code, working with APIs and developer tooling, debugging technical problems, and getting hands-on with unfamiliar technologies.
• Experience building developer-facing technical projects such as integrations, SDK examples, reference applications, open-source tools, demos, workshops, or developer infrastructure—and taking them from idea through launch and iteration.
• Ability to translate product and company priorities into a focused technical roadmap for a small team, and to make thoughtful trade-offs between experimentation, developer education, integrations, and other projects.
• Strong program management skills, including planning, prioritization, delegation, and proactive risk communication.
• Strong developer-product instincts and the ability to recognize where developers are getting stuck, what will create an “aha” moment, and whether the right solution is a product change, integration, tool, example, tutorial, or explanation.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly and engagingly.
• Experience with and joy for collaborating cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Growth, Sales, or Customer Success teams.
• Ability to balance hands-on execution with team leadership and long-term program development.
• Experience working in public codebases and developer ecosystems, including comfort with GitHub workflows, pull requests, issue discussions, technical feedback, and collaborating with external developers.
• Experience defining and reporting on DevRel eng metrics, program performance, or contribution to product and business outcomes.
• Comfortable operating in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment and creating clarity through direct communication and documented plans.
• Low ego, high horsepower with a “yes, and” mindset to collaboration.
• You have tried and used Tailscale.

Nice to Have

• Experience leading DevRel for a developer-focused infrastructure, networking, security, or open-source product.
• Deep familiarity with Tailscale, WireGuard, networking concepts, identity-based access, or Zero Trust architecture.
• Experience supporting product-led growth or self-serve adoption.
• Experience building technical integrations, example applications, community tools, or open-source projects.
• Established experience speaking at conferences, hosting technical videos, or facilitating developer workshops.
• Experience developing new public-facing technical voices within a team or company.
• Familiarity with measuring developer journeys from content engagement through signup, activation, and paid conversion.
• Experience managing agency partners, contractors, program budgets, or external contributors.
• Experience working in a fast-paced startup or scale-up environment.