Product Manager, Tailscale-Native Apps - Tailscale

About Tailscale

Tailscale is making safe connection effortless by delivering software that makes it easy to securely interconnect people and their devices. We're building a future for the Internet that's easy, sensible, and safe. Founded in 2019 and fully distributed, we're backed by Accel, CRV, Insight, Heavybit, and Uncork Capital.

About the Role

We're hiring a Product Manager to own the experience of building Tailscale-native applications—software with Tailscale connectivity and identity built in from the start. You will own the developer journey for our core primitives, including TSNet, our Rust-based SDK family, the Tailscale CLI, and our core client libraries.

Your goal is to transform the developer on-ramp from a friction-heavy process into a seamless, "golden path" experience for thousands of applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Roadmap Ownership: Lead the strategy for native app experiences, including TSNet, tailscale-rs, and the Tailscale CLI.
• Developer Experience: Define the "Tailscale-native" standard, including reference architectures, API ergonomics, and documentation.
• SDK Strategy: Set the direction for the Rust SDK family and prioritize porting capabilities.
• CLI as a Product: Treat the CLI as a first-class product for SRE and platform teams.
• Dogfooding: Partner with internal teams (Aperture, Tailscale PAM) to turn their feedback into product improvements.
• GTM Partnership: Collaborate with Customer Success and GTM teams to support embedding deals and prioritize developer needs.
• Community Engagement: Actively participate in GitHub, Discord, and office hours to understand developer pain points.

What We Are Looking For

• 6+ years in product management or software engineering with a focus on developer-facing products (SDKs, APIs, CLIs).
• Proven experience shipping developer-facing features and managing the lifecycle of design choices (naming, defaults, versioning).
• Ability to read Go and/or Rust to hold credible technical conversations about API design.
• Strong "taste" in developer experience: opinions on docs, error messages, and getting-started flows.
• Ability to turn ambiguous scope into shipped, incremental value.

Nice to Have

• Hands-on Go or Rust development experience.
• Experience at a developer platform company (e.g., Stripe, Twilio, Vercel).
• Open-source community experience.
• Familiarity with networking, zero-trust, or VPN technologies.
• Experience with LLMs and coding agents in your product workflow.

What We Offer

• Competitive total compensation (base salary + equity).
• Comprehensive group benefits with no waiting period.
• Flexible, remote-first work environment.
• $1,500 USD annual professional development budget.
• $500 USD home office customization stipend + monthly internet reimbursement.
• Paid parental leave program (20 weeks birthing / 16 weeks non-birthing).