About this role.
Tailscale is hiring a full-time Infrastructure Engineer to build and operate shared engineering services for a fully distributed, security-focused networking company. The role owns infrastructure improvements across observability, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure as code, managed services, and production automation. It requires hands-on experience with distributed systems, AWS or comparable cloud services, incident response, and collaboration with internal customer-facing and product engineering teams. Kubernetes, networking fundamentals, and Go are advantageous, while strong asynchronous communication and independent ownership are essential. This is a remote role located in the United Kingdom.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Job Complexity
4/5Pace & Pressure
4/5Autonomy Level
5/5Communication Load
5/5Salary analysis
Estimated compensation compared with the broader UK market for similar roles.
Core skills
Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.
Sample interview questions
I start by defining service-level indicators tied to user impact, then implement structured logs, key metrics, distributed tracing, and actionable alerts. I validate that dashboards and runbooks let an on-call engineer identify scope, probable cause, and mitigation quickly, and refine alert thresholds using real incident data.
I use version-controlled, modular infrastructure definitions with peer review, automated validation, policy checks, and a clear plan/apply workflow. Changes are promoted through isolated environments, monitored after deployment, and paired with rollback or recovery procedures for higher-risk resources.
I would first measure queue time, build duration, flaky-test frequency, and failure causes. I would then prioritize reproducible builds, dependency caching, parallelizable test stages, reliable test isolation, and deployment gates based on meaningful health checks rather than manual steps.
I focus first on restoring customer impact safely, using clear incident roles and concise status updates. After mitigation, I help produce a blameless review that identifies technical and process improvements, assigns owners, and verifies that follow-up actions reduce recurrence.
I write concise proposals that clarify the problem, options, trade-offs, recommendation, ownership, and decision deadline. I document decisions and operational context, seek feedback early from affected teams, and provide regular written updates so work can progress across time zones.
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’re seeking a skilled and diligent full-time Software Engineer to join our growing team. You will work as part of the engineering team to:
- Support and enable internal business units through shared engineering services and functionalities, building the tools and processes for those teams to succeed.
- Build relationships with multiple stakeholders across the organization to understand and meet their needs with projects you’ll own end to end.
- Work directly with internal customer facing teams to empower their mission and take pride in making their day-to-day lives easier. Work with product engineering to extract the data needed to drive business decisions.
- Example deliverables in this role might include:
- Improve observability through metrics, alerting, logging and telemetry integration
- Identify and build improvements for Continuous Deployment
- Utilize infrastructure as code to make changes in a cloud environment
- Collaborate with other engineering teams to build cross functional infrastructure improvements
- Automate upgrades for managed services and VMs.
Because we’re an early-stage and fully-remote company, we’re looking for a strongly motivated individual who can help move the product forward. The ability to think on your feet, collaborate with highly technical teams, and comfortably work asynchronously are essential.
Key Responsibilities
- Work as part of a team of engineers to design, build, test, and document core software components.
- Exhibit ownership over the running services that comprise Tailscale’s product by building for observability, participating in incident response, and fielding customer support escalations.
- Analyze and improve efficiency, scalability, and stability of various system resources.
What We Are Looking For
- Experience with CI/CD, secrets management, infrastructure as code, and observability
- Experience with distributed systems
- Experience with operating managed services in a cloud environment (preferably AWS)
- Experience with operating Kubernetes in production is a strong plus
- Familiarity with networks (IP addressing, routing, etc.)
- Most of the non-front-end portions of the system are developed in the Go programming language. Experience with Go is a plus.
- Ability to give and process constructive feedback, as well as work independently
- Flexibility to adjust to the dynamic nature of a startup
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
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.
UK Pay Range
£128,770—£161,160 GBP
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!
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.
Upload your resume now
- To unlock remote work opportunities and be discovered by global employers.
This job listing has been manually reviewed by the Jobicy Trust & Safety Team for compliance with our posting guidelines, including verification of the company's legitimacy, accuracy of job details, clarity of remote work policy, and absence of misleading or fraudulent content.
