Principal Product Manager (Dataplane) - Tailscale

About Tailscale

Tailscale is making safe connection effortless by delivering software that makes it easy to securely interconnect people and their devices. From hobbyists to multinational corporations, teams of every size use Tailscale to protect their networks and share access to internal tools. Founded in 2019 and fully distributed, we are backed by Accel, CRV, Insight, Heavybit, and Uncork Capital.

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Product Manager to lead Tailscale's dataplane platform—the critical layer that carries customer traffic and delivers the promise of "fast, secure, just works." You will drive forward open source and commercial technology spanning the Tailscale client, DERP, Subnet routers, WireGuard, Exit Nodes, Peer Relays, and App Connectors.

Key Responsibilities

• Vision & Roadmap: Set the strategy for the dataplane, including WireGuard behavior, DERP relay capacity, and client-side networking.
• Performance & Reliability: Define customer-facing product requirements, performance commitments, and SLOs.
• Connectivity Strategy: Own end-to-end strategy for regional expansion, capacity planning, and enterprise/private relay offerings.
• Operational Primitives: Drive the roadmap for subnet routers, exit nodes, and Peer Relays, including high-availability modes and operational tooling.
• Control Surface: Own the operator control surface, including the admin console and CLI, for network engineers and IT admins.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with design, engineering, GTM, and Customer Success to turn abstract networking systems into legible, well-reasoned product surfaces.
• External Representation: Act as a domain authority for Tailscale’s dataplane with enterprise customers, cloud partners, and the networking community.

What We Are Looking For

• 10+ years in product management owning networking, transport, edge, or infrastructure products (e.g., CDNs, SD-WAN, service mesh, API gateways).
• Deep networking fluency across the stack: comfortable with L4 routing, NAT traversal, congestion, and packet loss, as well as application-layer overlay routing and DNS.
• Demonstrated ability to define performance commitments and operate under real production expectations.

What We Offer

• Competitive total compensation package including base salary and equity.
• Comprehensive group benefits with no waiting period.
• Remote-first environment with annual company retreats and team off-sites.
• $1,500 USD annual professional development budget.
• Flexible paid time off and paid parental leave program.
• Build-your-own home office setup with monthly internet reimbursement.