[Hiring] Developer Relations Engineer @Tailscale

Role Description

Tailscale is looking for a Developer Relations Engineer to own and improve the developer experience across Tailscale’s expanding product portfolio. You’ll help developers understand, adopt, extend, and build with our core VPN/connectivity product, while also shaping how that experience evolves as Tailscale expands into new product areas like secure AI access (Aperture), privileged access management (PAM), and whatever comes next.

• You’re a builder, investigator, and storyteller.
• You write code, chase technical curiosities, and turn what you learn into useful materials like demos, docs, talks, blog posts, sample apps, workshops, videos, tools, and open source contributions.
• You’re comfortable speaking at conferences and digging through APIs, GitHub issues, or networking edge cases until they make sense.
• You ask “why does it work that way?” often, aiming to make answers clearer, simpler, and better for the next developer.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, whether gained through formal education, professional experience, open source work, self-directed learning, or building ambitious projects on your own.
• A track record of building and explaining technical systems, including production software, developer tools, infrastructure projects, open source contributions, homelab experiments, local AI setups, or networking projects.
• Comfort discussing technical tradeoffs in detail, including what you built, why you built it, what broke, what you learned, and what you would do differently next time.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, with demonstrated experience building, debugging, and shipping real projects.
• Ability to create clear, useful developer-facing materials, including code samples, demos, tutorials, docs, blog posts, videos, talks, and workshops.
• Deep curiosity about how systems work, especially across networking, infrastructure, security, identity, cloud, open source, AI, or developer tooling.
• A track record of building and explaining technical systems.
• Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills.
• Experience presenting to technical audiences through conferences, meetups, livestreams, workshops, podcasts, videos, or internal engineering forums.
• Comfortable working in public through GitHub issues, pull requests, community forums, social channels, open source projects, and developer feedback loops.
• Strong developer empathy, emotional intelligence, and product sense.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, product, marketing, support, community, and other technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable managing multiple workstreams and meeting regular deadlines.

Benefits

• An inclusive, flexible environment where you can be your authentic self.
• A competitive total compensation package, including base salary, equity incentive plan, and variable commission.
• Comprehensive group benefits with no waiting period for health, vision, dental, and more.
• Remote first company with opportunities for virtual and in-person social events.
• Employer-funded retirement contributions matched dollar-for-dollar, up to a maximum annual contribution.
• Support for personal and professional development with $1500 USD annually for professional development.
• Flexible paid time off program for any situation life throws your way.
• Build-your-own home office setup with a company-owned laptop and workstation customization budget.
• Paid parental leave program with top-ups for birthing and non-birthing parents.