Release Manager
Tailscale · Remote (United States)
About this role
**Release Manager** Thank you for considering Tailscale—if this job description resonates with you, please apply. **About Tailscale** Tailscale makes safe connection effortless by delivering software that helps you securely interconnect people and their devices, no matter where they are. From hobbyists to multinational corporations, teams of every size use Tailscale to protect their networks, share access to internal tools, and more. Founded in 2019 and fully distributed, we’re backed by Accel, CRV, Insight, Heavybit, and Uncork Capital. **About the Role** We’re looking for a **Release Manager** to own how Tailscale ships our product—internally and to customers. You’ll build and run our release coordination process and create operational practices that coordinate product and engineering. You’ll work closely with engineering leads, product managers, TPMs, and support. Initially, you’ll focus on building release management from the ground up: setting the release cadence, defining roles, building tooling, and agreeing on norms with the teams involved in releases. Later, it will expand into processes that support other parts of how product and engineering collaborate (including operational metrics). You should understand how software gets shipped—branching strategies, build pipelines, feature flags, and rollout mechanics—so you can design release processes engineers trust and actually use. **Key Responsibilities** - Design, implement, and continuously improve Tailscale’s release management process (release cadence, readiness criteria, rollout coordination, and go/no-go decisions) - Build and maintain tooling, templates, runbooks, and documentation to make releases repeatable and low-friction - Partner with engineering leads and product managers to surface risk early and drive resolution before it becomes a crisis - Define and track operational metrics that reflect the health of release practices (e.g., release frequency, change failure rate) - Keep releases on schedule by facilitating cross-team planning rituals that align engineering and product - Identify and drive systemic improvements using data and judgment to prioritize what matters **What We Are Looking For** - 5+ years in engineering operations, release management, or a closely related role at a software company - Direct experience building or significantly improving release management processes - Technical fluency to have credible conversations about build systems, deployment pipelines, branching strategies, and production operations - Strong instincts for what process is worth having vs. overhead—optimizing for trust and adoption - Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to build structure from scratch **Nice to Have** - Experience with both client and server software release processes - Experience at a developer tools, infrastructure, or security-focused SaaS company - Familiarity with DORA metrics and using them to drive meaningful improvement - Experience with feature flag systems, progressive rollouts, or canary deployments - Experience scaling operational practices during rapid team/product growth - Hands-on experience with Tailscale at work or home **Compensation (US Pay Range)** - **$181,000 — $226,000 USD** **What We Offer** - An inclusive, flexible environment where you can be your authentic self - Competitive total compensation (base salary + equity; variable commission for quota-based roles) - Comprehensive group benefits with no waiting period - **Remote-first
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