Product Manager, Control Plane

Job Description

We are seeking a Principal Product Manager to own Tailscale's control plane. At its core is the coordination server — the authoritative source of network state. It distributes public keys, ACL policies, and node addresses so devices can find and authenticate each other directly. It carries no user traffic; it just makes the mesh possible. See How Tailscale Works.

Tailscale's growth has pushed this architecture hard. The coordination service is now serving over 3 million simultaneously connected nodes, and the reliability challenges that come with that scale are not a secret — our CEO, Avery, has written about them publicly (Hypergrowth Isn't Always Easy). On top of the coordination layer sits everything enterprises need to run Tailscale at scale: access policy, device trust, identity management, audit logging, compliance, multi-tenancy, and the API layer that administrators, partners, and developers use to automate and govern their tailnets.

The control architecture is being rebuilt for high availability, global scale, and zero-downtime operations — a long-term program that affects every team, every customer, and every future product.

The right person will define the product requirements that guide the HA architecture: multi-tenancy models, what SLAs to commit to, what consistency tradeoffs customers can accept, what the deployment experience looks like during transition, and how the platform evolves from where it is today to where it needs to be.

You'll report to the VP Product, Ross Kukulinski, partner directly with the engineering lead for the control plane, and coordinate across the Control Plane, Identity, and Infrastructure teams as they execute in parallel.

Key Responsibilities

• Set the vision and roadmap for the control plane: coordination server, compliance, and the management API
• Define what "done" looks like at each phase of our HA & vertical scaling efforts from a customer and business perspective: availability targets, consistency requirements, SLA language, and how we communicate honestly during the transition
• Shape the multi-tenancy evolution — what it means for MSPs managing hundreds of customer networks, OEM partners provisioning tailnets, and enterprises segmenting by business unit, including data residency and isolation requirements
• Push for user experiences to be API-first: every user experience action available via API, which is both what enterprise customers need and the prerequisite for MSP portals, OEM integrations, and Terraform providers
• Keep the HA program moving across Control Plane, Identity, and Infrastructure — sequencing decisions, surfacing tradeoffs, making sure the business and customer perspectives are represented
• Work with GTM, Customer Success, and Security on the compliance and administration gaps that stall deals with regulated-industry customers

What We Are Looking For

• 8+ years in product management with meaningful time owning a platform or infrastructure product — SaaS control planes, API platforms, cloud infrastructure, identity systems, or similar
• Experience turning infrastructure architecture decisions into product requirements: what availability to promise, what consistency tradeoffs are acceptable, how to write SLA language that's honest about limitations
• Comfortable in technical conversations about distributed systems — consistency models, large-scale migrations, the tradeoffs that come with replication
• Has shipped products that enterprise customers depend on for their operations, and understands what it takes to earn and keep that trust
• Can move decisions across teams that don't report to you, on infrastructure that everyone has opinions about
• Knows how to talk to IT administrators, security engineers, and CISOs — and can turn what you hear into a strategy that both the engineering team and the sales team believe in

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with identity federation (SAML, OIDC, SCIM) or MDM products
• Background in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, government) and relevant compliance frameworks
• Hands-on experience with Tailscale at work or home

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.