Product Manager, Control Plane

Tailscale is building the new Internet by delivering software that makes it easy to securely interconnect people and their devices. They are seeking a Principal Product Manager to own Tailscale's control plane, defining product requirements for high availability architecture and coordinating across multiple teams to support enterprise needs.

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

Requirements:

• 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
• 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