---
title: 'Head of Communications at Tailscale'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-communications-tailscale-united-states-cd275mjcp9zk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-03'
---

# Head of Communications at Tailscale

- **Company:** Tailscale
- **Location:** United States
- **Compensation:** $190k–$237k
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-10-25
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-03
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/tailscale/jobs/4746917005

## Job description

Thank you for considering Tailscale. If this job description resonates with you, please apply. 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!

## About Tailscale

Tailscale is making safe connection effortless 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.

## About the Role

We are seeking a strategic, creative, and highly experienced Head of Communications to lead and scale Tailscale's global communications function. This leader will shape how Tailscale is understood by the market, elevate our visibility in the media, and build the communications engine needed to support our next phase of growth.

Tailscale is a multi-product secure connectivity platform spanning networking, privileged access, workload connectivity, and AI infrastructure. We have an opportunity to help define the future of secure connectivity, establishing Tailscale as the obvious and best networking choice for AI and agentic infrastructure. We're looking for someone who can turn our technical innovation, customer impact, and vision into compelling stories that earn attention and establish Tailscale as a category leader.

Reporting to the SVP of Marketing, you will own product and corporate communications, public relations, media strategy, internal communications, crisis communications, award applications, international comms and media relations, new media engagement, and executive communications across the leadership team outside the CEO. You'll also partner closely with a separate dedicated CEO and policy communications leader to ensure our stories are coordinated and consistent.

This is a builder role for someone who combines strong strategic judgment with exceptional execution. You will initially be hands-on while hiring and developing a small, high-performing team. You will work directly with leaders across Product, Engineering, Marketing, People, Legal, and the executive team to build a communications function that can scale with Tailscale's ambitions.

## Key Responsibilities

- Develop and execute Tailscale's global communications strategy, strengthening brand awareness, reputation, and market leadership.
- Lead product and technology communications, translating complex innovations, product launches, and customer stories into compelling narratives that earn meaningful media coverage. This should include sustained product storytelling between launches, including through independent reviews, technical publications, comparisons, creators, and third party validation. It could also include research-led PR.
- Build strong relationships with top-tier business, technology, cybersecurity, and AI journalists, driving proactive media opportunities and increasing Tailscale's share of voice.
- Expand Tailscale's presence across emerging media channels, including influential podcasts, newsletters, creators, and technical communities.
- Own corporate communications for major company milestones, strategic partnerships, funding announcements, and other business developments.
- Build and scale international communications programs, including regional media relations and agency partnerships.
- Develop executive communications and thought leadership programs for the leadership team outside the CEO, including speaking opportunities, media engagements, and executive social presence. Partner closely with the dedicated CEO and policy communications lead to coordinate company narratives, major announcements, and executive engagement, building comms campaigns for executives that align with the overall company narrative.
- Oversee internal communications, partnering with People and executive leadership on company-wide messaging, all-hands, organizational changes, and employee engagement communications.
- Lead crisis communications, establishing response plans and partnering with Legal, Security, Engineering, and leadership to protect customer trust and company reputation. You should be able to improve processes over time as we scale.
- Own Tailscale's awards and recognition strategy, identifying and securing high-value industry and company accolades.
- Hire, manage, and develop a high-performing communications team while overseeing external agencies, communications processes, and performance measurement. This team will start small (likely 2 heads), but has the potential to grow in the future as we scale.
- Partner closely with the dedicated CEO and policy communications individual contributor to maintain consistent narratives and support broader policy communications initiatives.

## What We Are Looking For

- 10+ years of experience in public relations, product communications, or corporate communications, ideally within high-growth B2B technology companies.
- Proven track record of securing meaningful earned media coverage and building strong relationships with influential journalists.
- Deep product communications expertise, with the ability to translate complex technical products into clear, compelling stories.
- Experience hiring, managing, and developing communications professionals and overseeing agency partners.
- Exceptional writing, storytelling, and editorial judgment across external, executive, and internal communications.
- Experience advising senior executives and navigating high-stakes or sensitive communications situations.
- Strong strategic judgment and operational discipline, with the ability to prioritize, build scalable processes, and measure impact. Curiosity around and openness to leveraging AI to support operations and execution but not replace human taste and judgement.
- A hands-on, creative, and highly accountable leader who thrives in ambiguity, moves quickly, and is comfortable building from the ground up.

## Nice to Have

- Experience in networking, cybersecurity, infrastructure, developer tools, or AI.
- Experience scaling communications at a high-growth, global technology company.
- Experience supporting fundraising, acquisitions, or pre-IPO communications as well as experience supporting a company through an IPO.

- Experience collaborating with teams who support analyst relations, public policy, or major industry research initiatives.

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 Range $190,000—$237,000 USD

## 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.
- Employer-funded retirement contributions. Tailscale will match your retirement contributions dollar-for-dollar, up to a maximum annual employer contribution equal to 0.75% of your eligible compensation.
- Connect with other Tailscalars IRL. Attend our annual company retreat, participate in team off-sites, and collaborate in person with teammates across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. We support intentional in-person connection through team travel and distributed collaboration.
- 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 $500 USD to customize your workstation to make it your own.
- Paid parental leave program. We care about your life outside of work and encourage new parents to take advantage of parental leave top-ups (20 weeks for birthing parents, 16 weeks for non-birthing parents).

Tailscale is committed to providing an accessible and inclusive hiring process. If you require an accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process or related to any aspect of this role, please contact your recruiter.

Our hiring process uses AI-assisted tools to help screen and assess candidates. All hiring decisions are made by people.

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 Tailscale

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Tailscale provides a zero-trust identity-based connectivity platform that replaces legacy VPNs, SASE, and PAM to securely connect remote teams, multi-cloud environments, CI/CD pipelines, edge/IoT devices, and AI workloads.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: Toronto, Canada (fully remote, with team members also in the United States and United Kingdom)
- **Founded**: 2019
- **Founders**: Avery Pennarun (CEO), David Carney (Chief Strategy Officer), and Brad Fitzpatrick (creator of LiveJournal, Memcached, and OpenID)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Secure connectivity, zero-trust networking, VPN replacement, infrastructure security
- **Target customers**: B2B – from small businesses and open-source projects to mid-market and enterprise organizations (30,000+ businesses use Tailscale). Also serves developers, IT teams, and DevOps engineers.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “We want to help everyone create their own secure networks built around people and their connections. By making connectivity easier and more secure, we empower teams to build systems that scale, without scaling overhead.”

## Products & Services
- **Tailscale (Core Platform)** – A zero-trust mesh overlay network that provides identity-based access to any resource (servers, containers, SaaS tools, cloud instances) without public exposure. Replaces legacy VPNs, bastion hosts, and complex firewall rules. Includes features like SSH, Kubernetes access, database connectivity, and Aperture for securing AI workloads.
- **Tailscale Funnel** – Expose local services to the internet securely through Tailscale’s infrastructure.
- **Tailscale Serve** – Allow specific devices on a tailnet to serve content publicly or privately.
- **Tailscale SSH** – Manage SSH access with identity-based, auditable controls.
- **Tailscale Aperture** – Secure access for AI/ML workloads and data pipelines.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric (Funding)**: Total funding of approximately $105M across multiple rounds. Series A ($35M) led by CRV in 2021; Series B ($70M) led by Accel and Insight Partners in 2022.
- **Key Metric (Customers)**: 30,000+ businesses use Tailscale. Headcount estimated at ~290 employees as of 2026.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Accel, CRV, Insight Partners, Heavybit, Uncork Capital. Investors include Amit Kumar (Partner at Accel), Reid Christian (Partner at CRV), Joseph Ruscio (Partner at Heavybit), Rebecca Liu-Doyle (Director at Insight Partners), and Andy McLoughlin (Partner at Uncork).
- **Growth Signals**: 25x headcount growth without dedicated IT resources for onboarding; 90% reduction in internal support requests; thousands of hours saved with fewer connectivity issues. Strong adoption in the AI era for securing workloads.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Built on WireGuard**: Tailscale is built on the modern, audited, and high-performance WireGuard protocol (wireguard-go), with upstream contributions to the open-source project.
- **Zero Trust by Design**: Identity-based access, end-to-end encryption, point-to-point connections (no central VPN server to bottleneck or inspect traffic). User privacy is a fundamental design principle.
- **Simplicity & Speed**: “It has to just work” – installation takes minutes, configuration is minimal, and the platform is cross-platform and infrastructure-agnostic.
- **Open Source Core**: The core client and server code are open source, and Tailscale offers a free plan for open-source projects, building trust and community.
- **Small, Excellent Teams**: The company philosophy is “small is beautiful” – they believe small, excellent teams produce coherent, high-quality outcomes that large teams cannot replicate.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI & Multi-Cloud Connectivity**: Tailscale is positioning itself as the secure connectivity platform for the AI era, with specific features (Aperture) for AI workloads.
- **Expanding Enterprise Features**: Adding capabilities like Privileged Access Management (SSH, K8s, databases), granular access controls, and audit logging.
- **Scaling the Business**: With 30,000+ businesses already onboard, the focus is on converting free/open-source users to paid plans and expanding into larger enterprise accounts.
- **Global Hiring**: Actively hiring across engineering (Go, Infrastructure, Security, Mobile), customer success, sales, marketing, and operations in the US, Canada, and UK, with some roles in Singapore.

## Why Work Here
- **Fully Remote & Flexible**: Tailscale is a fully remote company with team members across the US, Canada, and UK. Flexible working hours are core to the culture – employees are trusted to manage their time around their lives (family, appointments, etc.).
- **Competitive Total Rewards**: Competitive salaries, generous equity incentive plans, group health benefits with no waiting periods, flexible sick days, and an employee assistance program.
- **Work-Life Balance**: 26 weeks of paid parental leave, flexible paid vacation, 12 paid company holidays, and a full holiday closure from Dec 24 to Jan 1.
- **Workspace Support**: Company-provided laptop (Mac/PC), monthly internet reimbursement, and a “build your own workstation” bonus.
- **Engineering Culture**: Strong emphasis on open-source contribution, Go programming, and systems-level engineering. Many team members are active in the Go, NixOS, and SQLite communities.
- **Inclusive & Diverse**: The company is committed to diversity and inclusion, with a team not bound by geography, lifestyle, or life stage. They provide accommodations throughout the interview process.
- **Interview Process**: For technical roles: Recruiter Interview → Hiring Manager Interview → 2-3 Team Interviews → Technical Working Session → Offer. For non-technical roles: Recruiter → Hiring Manager → 2-3 Team Interviews → Offer.

## Sources
1. [tailscale.com](https://tailscale.com/) – Official website
2. [tailscale.com/company](https://tailscale.com/company) – About page, team, investors, guiding principles
3. [tailscale.com/careers](https://tailscale.com/careers) – Careers page, perks, benefits, culture
4. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/tailscale](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/tailscale/jobs/4525230005) – Current job openings
5. [jobsbyculture.com](https://jobsbyculture.com/blog/working-at-tailscale-2026) – Employee culture review (2026, ~290 employees)

## Other roles at Tailscale

- [ABM Campaign Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/abm-campaign-manager-tailscale-united-kingdom-2hq08bhgrmm5) — United Kingdom
- [ABM Campaign Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/abm-campaign-manager-tailscale-united-states-aqh23hk91fj2) — United States
- [ABM Campaign Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/abm-campaign-manager-tailscale-canada-g0ph7dc61b8w) — Canada
- [Front End Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/front-end-engineer-tailscale-united-states-6c52kxbsfdhw) — United States
- [Front End Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/front-end-engineer-tailscale-canada-wt00xmx850ex) — Canada
- [Integrations Partnerships Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/integrations-partnerships-lead-tailscale-united-states-9mky5vw1eqvp) — United States
- [Integrations Partnerships Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/integrations-partnerships-lead-tailscale-canada-e91gez16pdvw) — Canada
- [Head of Communications](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-communications-tailscale-canada-yqk4s9kesjwz) — Canada
- [Strategic Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-enterprise-account-executive-tailscale-united-states-j72q76esbb7a) — United States
- [Program Manager, EPD Operations](https://feeny.ai/job/program-manager-epd-operations-tailscale-united-states-vhxf8tc001tg) — United States