Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career, regardless of where they went to school or who they know. Today, we power 25 million job seekers, 1 million+ employers, and 1,600 educational institutions.
In 2025, we started Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. We work directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data. We’ve grown from $0 to ~$1B run rate and pay ~$60M to over 30K individuals every month.
Why join Handshake now:
Shape how every career evolves in the AI economy, at global scale, with impact your friends, family and peers can see and feel
Partner hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions
Work together with engineers, scientists, operators, and more from Palantir, Meta, Scale AI, and former YC founders
Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue
Location: San Francisco, CA — 5 days/week in-office
About the Role
We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a high-impact engineering team within Handshake Careers. You’ll own the engineering of a new, agent-first product for industry recruiting: the future of how companies find, evaluate, and reach experienced talent.
Recruiting teams work through hours of manual searching, filtering, and outreach. Our product replaces that with an agent. A recruiter describes who they need, or uploads a job description, and the agent builds an ideal candidate profile, finds matches, refines results from feedback, and drafts and sends personalized outreach.
You’ll lead the founding team, a mix of senior, staff, principal, and mid-level engineers. The product is self-serve from day one, starting free and growing into paid and enterprise tiers.
What you’ll doLead and grow a new engineering team, including senior, staff, and principal engineers, through hiring, coaching, and career development
Own the end-to-end product: sign-up and onboarding, agent-driven search and calibration, shortlists, analytics, and tiering
Shape the architecture early. Review technical designs and proposals and set direction
Drive execution on an ambitious timeline across a large project, and make clear trade-offs with product and design on scope versus speed
Partner closely with product and design, and with the teams behind outreach, candidate data, and AI/ML search and retrieval
Establish the team’s engineering culture, processes, and operating rhythm from the ground up
3+ years experience managing engineering teams, including teams that include senior and staff engineers
Strong people management: high EQ, empathy, and a record of growing engineers’ careers
Deep technical background. You can contribute to architecture and evaluate trade-offs on a new system, even if you no longer code day to day
A track record of delivering large, cross-functional projects on aggressive timelines, with good judgment about what to cut
Zero-to-one experience: building a new product or major surface from scratch, ideally at a startup, a mid-size company, or a product-led team inside a larger one
Experience with AI/LLM-powered products, agents, or evaluation systems
Experience with self-serve or product-led growth products (free-to-paid, usage-based limits) is a plus
Perks
Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported—and thrive at work and in life.
The below benefits are for full-time US employees.
🎯 Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company
💰 Financial Wellness: 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching
🍼 Family Support: Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching
💝 Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, wellness stipend
📚 Growth: Learning stipend, ongoing development
💻 Remote & Office: Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office
🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days
🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses
Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.
Skills Required
- 3+ years of experience managing engineering teams, including teams with senior and staff engineers
- Strong people-management skills, empathy, high emotional intelligence, and a record of developing engineers' careers
- Deep technical background with the ability to contribute to architecture and evaluate system trade-offs
- Track record of delivering large, cross-functional projects on aggressive timelines
- Zero-to-one experience building a new product or major product surface
- Experience with AI or LLM-powered products, agents, or evaluation systems
- Experience with self-serve or product-led growth products
Handshake Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Handshake and has not been reviewed or approved by Handshake.
-
Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off practices include flexible/unlimited PTO, companywide recharge weeks in summer and winter, plus additional volunteer and personal holiday time. Feedback suggests sabbaticals and coordinated breaks help people actually use rest time.
-
Parental & Family Support — Parental leave is described as extended for primary and secondary caregivers, and family-oriented policies are highlighted. Fertility and family-support resources are referenced in public materials.
-
Healthcare Strength — Core coverage spans medical, dental, and vision, with added mental-health resources and wellness programming. Feedback suggests these supports contribute meaningfully to overall wellbeing.
Handshake Insights
What We Do
Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 650,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, and nonprofits. Earlier this year, we announced our $200M Series F funding round. This Series F fundraise and new valuation of $3.5B will fuel Handshake’s next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.
Why Work With Us
How someone builds their career is foundational. We believe in working with the higher education community to help students build meaningful careers. We are at the nexus of universities, students and employers— and we’re able to connect the very best pieces of each side. We’re proud to create a community where students can be more successful.
Gallery
