Join Proton and build a better internet where privacy is the default. Proton was founded in 2014 by scientists from CERN on a simple truth: privacy is a fundamental human right. Since then, we’ve built the world’s largest encrypted email service (Proton Mail) and expanded into Proton VPN, Proton Drive, Proton Pass, and Proton Calendar—tools used by millions globally to protect their freedom, fight censorship, and keep their data safe. In some situations, Proton has literally helped save lives!
🏢 About Proton
Proton was founded in 2014 by scientists from CERN on a simple truth: privacy is a fundamental human right. Since then, we’ve built the world’s largest encrypted email service (Proton Mail) and expanded into Proton VPN, Proton Drive, Proton Pass, and Proton Calendar—tools used by millions globally to protect their freedom, fight censorship, and keep their data safe. In some situations, Proton has literally helped save lives! We are profitable, independent (no VC control), and selectively hire from the top ~1% of applicants. Our 700+ team members across 50+ countries come from leading organizations and elite academic backgrounds. We move fast, keep hierarchy light, and prioritize impact over optics. If you want to do meaningful work with exceptionally high-caliber people, this is it. Join us and do work you can truly be proud of.
🎯 The Role
We are hiring an engineering manager to lead this team. You will report to the VPN Engineering Director and work from our Geneva or Barcelona office. The fleet keeps growing as more people use Proton VPN. To stay ahead of that growth, the team is investing in two areas, and you will lead both.
✅ Key Responsibilities
Manage and develop a team of eight engineers.
Decide what the team automates and measures first, and deliver that plan.
Own the reliability of the Proton VPN fleet, including SLOs, error budgets, incident response, and postmortems.
Build monitoring that shows what users experience in each country, starting with throughput.
Replace manual provisioning, deployment, and repair work with tooling that ships changes to the fleet quickly and safely.
Set the engineering standards for the team, and coach engineers to solve operational problems with software.
Plan capacity and new locations with VPN product engineering, Proton's infrastructure teams, and our network and datacenter providers.
📌 Required Qualifications
Several years of experience managing site reliability, infrastructure, or platform teams.
Experience leading a team from manual operations to automated ones, with results you can describe.
Strong technical judgment on large Linux fleets. You can review a design, read Python and Ansible, and find the gaps in a postmortem.
Experience owning the reliability of a production service, including SLOs, error budgets, incident response, and postmortems.
Experience building or rebuilding the monitoring of a production service, and getting engineers to rely on it.
Experience running physical infrastructure, or a clear willingness to learn it.
Experience developing engineers, giving direct feedback, and addressing underperformance.
Experience delivering projects that depend on teams outside your own.
The habit of setting your own priorities. We will give you goals, and you will decide with the team how to reach them.
Clear writing in strategy documents, incident reports, and engineering standards.
A commitment to privacy. Proton VPN keeps no logs of user activity, and you will have to improve observability within that limit.
⭐ Desirable Experience
Deep networking knowledge: routing, peering, tunnelling protocols such as WireGuard and OpenVPN, and packet-level debugging.
Experience with censorship circumvention, or with running infrastructure in restricted network environments.
Experience operating a fleet across many countries, including the vendor and legal work involved.
A background as a software engineer, in Python or another language.
🎁 Benefits
Work that Matters: millions of people trust Proton with their privacy. We answer only to our users — not advertisers, not investors with conflicting agendas, not governments. The work you do here is real, and the impact is measurable.
Stock Options: at Proton, we all have the opportunity to be owners of the company. From day one, you have a real stake in what we're building. When Proton wins, you win.
Technology: you'll get the right hardware and the right software you need to do your best work.
Learning & Development: we invest in your growth because sharp people make us better. Proton is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your career because you'll be thrown into real challenges, with real ownership, from day one.
Employee Benefits: your wellbeing isn't an afterthought. We offer strong health coverage, solid retirement options, generous leave, and wellness support so you can bring your best self to work every day
In-Person Collaboration: Amazing things happen when passionate, smart, and purposeful people get together in the same room. With offices across Geneva, Zürich, Barcelona, London and more, you'll spend most of your time collaborating face-to-face with people who genuinely care about what they're building
Food: Lunch and snacks are on us every day in our offices so you can focus on the work and not on what's for lunch.
Transport: getting to the office shouldn't cost you. We cover public transport, bike allowances, or parking, whichever works for you.
Flexible Working: you own your schedule. Set hours that work for you and your team — because outcomes matter more than when the clock says you started.
🛂 Visa & Eligibility
Proton does not accept unsolicited resumes from any sources other than directly from candidates. We will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from an unsolicited offer, even if the candidate is subsequently hired by Proton.
