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TailscaleTA

Technical Program Manager

Tailscale is building the new Internet: small, trusted, human-scale networks, interconnected.

Tailscale

Employee count: 51-200

Salary: 130k-163k USD

United States only

About Tailscale

Tailscale is building the new Internet by delivering software that makes it easy to securely interconnect people and their devices, no matter where they are. From hobbyists to multinational corporations, teams of every size use Tailscale each day to protect their networks, share access to internal tools, and more. We're building a future for the Internet that's easy, sensible, and safe, like it used to be. Founded in 2019 and fully distributed, we're backed by Accel, CRV, Insight, Heavybit, and Uncork Capital.

Job Description

We’re seeking a talented and motivated full-time Technical Program Manager to join our team. You’ll work across teams to guide development work.

Because we’re an early-stage and fully remote company, we’re looking for an individual who can work independently to align the teams involved in building the product. Ability to think on one’s feet, enjoy collaborating with highly technical teams, and be comfortable working asynchronously is essential.

Key Responsibilities

You will work as part of the Engineering team to:

  • Manage large scale technical programs from inception through delivery, coordinating between Engineering, Design, and Product (EPD) to schedule and guide development of features in the Tailscale product and (over)communicate what’s planned to a remote-first team.
  • Define clear success criteria, track KPIs and ensure programs deliver measurable outcomes aligned with strategic goals.
  • Recommend and implement improvements based on program retrospectives, stakeholder feedback, research, and industry trends.
  • Identify process gaps within EPD and develop just the right amount of process to fill the gap: not too much, not too little.
  • Partner with stakeholders to define requirements, align priorities, and drive delivery across engineering, product, support, and GtM.
  • Champion continuous improvement initiatives to scale agility, visibility, and velocity across programs.
  • Assist in strategic planning through coordination with Engineering teams, iterating on planning processes including capacity, interrupts, and tech debt planning.
  • Establish and maintain program-level governance, including anticipating and mitigating risk issues, managing dependencies, and driving resolution through collaborative problem-solving.
  • Manage large complex multi-team technical programs in partnership with external customers.

What We Are Looking For

  • 5+ years of experience as a Technical Program Manager (TPM) within Engineering, coordinating large, complex, multi-team technical programs.
  • Experience as a TPM in a startup environment: Ability to thrive in a fast paced environment with a high level of ambiguity and constant change.
  • Experience with networking security software concepts and terminology (NAT traversal, DERPs, DNS, ACLs) and authentication (SSO, OIDC).
  • Familiarity with WireGuard protocol and Zero Trust Networking
  • Experience diving deep into technical details while maintaining a high-level view of program status.
  • Experience building trust with engineering teams and driving technical changes through influence.
  • A proven track record for being detail-oriented with a demonstrated ability to self-motivate and follow through on initiatives.
  • Ability to give and process constructive feedback, as well as work independently
  • Ability to communicate openly, supporting and championing innovation and inclusivity, in both written and verbal communication
  • Proficiency in Agile methodologies and project management tools, such as Jira, Notion, and GitHub

You should include these in your application

  • Your resume
  • Any available white papers, case studies, or other publicly available material where your role as a TPM was essential in bringing the project to fruition.

As a company, we strive to maintain fair and equitable compensation practices within our team across all roles and all levels. Tailscale's compensation package includes base salary, equity, and comprehensive benefits. The salary range displayed on each job posting represents the target range for a new hire's base salary. Individual offers may vary based on experience and skill set.

US Pay Ranges
$130,000$163,000 USD

Frequently cited statistics show that people who identify with historically marginalized groups are likely to apply to jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to help us break that statistic!

What We Offer

  • An inclusive, flexible environment where you can be your authentic self. We recognize the impact of diverse voices and backgrounds on the growth of our people, product, and company. And that flexibility in how and when you work empowers our team to integrate work and life.
  • A competitive total compensation package. This includes a base salary, an equity incentive plan and variable commission (for quota-based roles).
  • Comprehensive group benefits with no waiting period. Take advantage of coverage for health, vision, dental, and more for you and your family!
  • Remote first company—most of our teams work fully remotely. Enjoy a change of scenery wherever you can get wifi, participate in virtual and in-person social events, and leverage our corporate co-working program to visit WeWork (or other similar spaces near you). Some roles require in-office collaboration depending on team needs, which will be clearly noted in the job description.
  • Connect with other Tailscalars IRL. Attend our annual company retreat, participate in team/department off-sites, or use your individual travel budget to meet up with team members in Canada, the US, or the UK.
  • Support for your personal and professional development. Grow your career thoughtfully with $1500 USD annually for professional development, or take advantage of mentorship, coaching, and internal promotion opportunities.
  • Paid time off and a healthy work-life integration. Our flexible, paid time off program supports you for any situation life throws your way, whether moving homes or travelling the world!
  • A build-your-own home office setup. You choose your own company-owned laptop (Mac or PC), receive a monthly home internet reimbursement, and $1000 USD to customize your workstation to make it your own.
  • Generous parental leave program from your first day. We care about your life outside of work and encourage new parents to take advantage of parental leave top-ups for up to 26 weeks.

Please be aware that legitimate emails from Tailscale's talent team will only originate from @tailscale.com, @greenhouse.io, and @interviews.modernloop.io email addresses. For more information about protecting yourself from impersonators and scams, please visit https://tailscale.com/scam-awareness.

About the job

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Job type

Full Time

Experience level

Mid-level
Senior

Salary

Salary: 130k-163k USD

Location requirements

Hiring timezones

United States +/- 0 hours

About Tailscale

Learn more about Tailscale and their company culture.

View company profile

Tailscale is building the new Internet: small, trusted, human-scale networks, interconnected. We combine WireGuard with 2-factor authentication, a distributed mesh, centralized security policies, and magic.

We’re building the new internet

Trusted, human-scale networks.

We’re returning to the original vision of the Internet. We want to help everyone create their own secure networks built around people and their connections.

Whether you want to connect with your co-workers to share a prototype, the company database to securely access information, or your family members to share files and photos, Tailscale makes networking safe and understandable.

We’re working to remove overhead and complexity from the “long tail” of software and operational problems that people face every day. By making connectivity easier and more secure, we empower teams to build systems that scale, without scaling overhead.

Our guiding principles

Real people solving concrete problems: Decentralization, encryption, and scalability are means to an end, not the ends in themselves. We’re here to solve tech problems for diverse teams in diverse industries, and our team is diverse and empathetic to match.

Small is beautiful: We don’t believe in huge teams or huge clusters. We don’t believe workers are interchangeable. We believe that excellent, small teams produce excellent, beautiful, coherent outcomes that large teams, and large networks, just can’t replicate.

It has to “just work”: This should be standard, but surprisingly it’s not, because system reliability is hard. It might not be glamorous or shiny, but our job is to do the boring parts and get out of the way, so customers can get back to the work that matters to them.

Our commitments

Putting people first

Listening to a range of voices leads to a product and a company that’s better for everyone. As a diverse team we work together to understand the challenges our users face. This allows us to build a product that makes physical and virtual communities feel successful, safe and secure.

An inclusive workplace starts with a team that is not bound by geographical location, lifestyle, or life stage, which is why we are proudly, and always have been, a fully remote company with flexible working hours. Whether a mid-afternoon kids’ soccer match, time with family on the other side of the country, or an emergency vet visit, employees are trusted and respected to manage their time and projects around their life.

Diverse teams have diverse interests and voices. Whether on the Tailscale blog, or personal Twitter accounts, Tailscale celebrates communicating freely and safely, in each person’s own voice.

Supporting open source

Open source is the present and future of software development. Writing software ought not be zero-sum. Tailscale is open source at its core. It’s also free for open-source projects.

Tailscale is built on WireGuard, specifically wireguard-go. We upstream changes that help other users of the project. We also support WireGuard with financial donations.

Many Tailscalars are active in the Go community, and contribute to the project and community. When we develop features that help everyone, we upstream them. And it’s not just Go. Our team has many passions, from NixOS to SQLite.

Protecting user privacy

Privacy is a fundamental human right, and we designed Tailscale accordingly. We don’t want your data. Your data is end-to-end encrypted and transmitted point-to-point so we don’t see your packets and don’t have to pay for them, which keeps our costs low, which means our free plan can stay free. We don’t capture any more of your data than needed to provide the service, as in our privacy policy.

Tailscale networks are private. Only connect with people you’ve explicitly invited, and only share what and when you want to share.

We augment privacy with transparency and knowledge. For example, we make sure you know before you access a shared node, that your public IP address will be visible to admins on that tailnet.

Employee benefits

Learn about the employee benefits and perks provided at Tailscale.

View benefits

Employee assistance program (EAP)

We have various employee assistance programs.

Equity benefits

Generous equity incentive plans, so you are rewarded for your best work.

Work from (almost) anywhere

Remote-first work environment and flexibility to work wherever you can get wifi.

Prioritizing health

Group health benefits for you and your family with no waiting periods + flexible sick days.

View Tailscale's employee benefits
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