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
About the Role
As a Senior Software Engineer on the Employer team, you'll help build the next generation of hiring on Handshake. How can AI help employers discover talent they would otherwise miss? How can we turn hours of manual recruiting into intuitive, effective workflows? You'll tackle these kinds of problems with real ownership—taking initiatives from an early idea through architecture, launch, and the next iteration.
The team's work spans AI-powered sourcing, automated outreach, and recruiting agents, alongside the monetization and growth experiences that help employers succeed on our platform. You'll bring strong product instincts and technical judgment to a space where the opportunity goes beyond improving an existing workflow: it's about rethinking how employers find and connect with talent.
This is a role for an engineer who wants to shape what gets built, not just how it's built. You'll partner closely with product, design, and data, work alongside experienced engineers, and lead meaningful initiatives end to end. You'll move quickly, run A/B tests, learn from customer feedback and real-world results, and build scalable products whose impact shows up in real hiring outcomes.
This job is 5 days a week onsite in our San Francisco, CA office.
Your Role
Own high-impact full-stack initiatives from idea to launch, shaping product direction and driving technical execution
Build smarter hiring experiences, with opportunities across AI-powered sourcing, automated outreach, and recruiting integrations
Run A/B tests and use customer feedback to improve employer engagement, conversion, and hiring outcomes
Develop monetization and growth experiences that help employers get more value from Handshake
Architect scalable, reliable systems and make pragmatic tradeoffs across frontend, backend, and integrations
Partner with product, design, and data to turn ambiguous customer needs into intuitive, effective products
Elevate engineering quality through thoughtful code reviews, mentorship, and ownership of production systems
Desired Capabilities
Proven experience owning complex products from idea through launch and iteration
Strong full-stack engineering skills, with proficiency in Ruby on Rails, Go, or Python
Experience designing scalable architectures and reliable distributed systems
Strong product judgment, connecting technical decisions to customer needs and business outcomes
Comfort with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and rapid experimentation
Pragmatic technical decision-making and a high bar for maintainable, production-quality code
Clear communication, collaborative leadership, and confidence to challenge assumptions and surface blockers
Comfort using AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor and Claude
Extra Credit
Experience building AI-powered products, LLM applications, or recruiting agents
Background in product-led growth, A/B testing, and improving activation or conversion
Experience with Stripe integrations, payments, billing, or monetization
Experience building recruiting tools, SaaS integrations, or employer-facing products
Familiarity with promoted-content systems, attribution, or customer-facing analytics
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, $500 wellness stipend
📚 Growth: $2,000 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
- Proven experience owning complex products from idea through launch and iteration
- Strong full-stack engineering skills
- Proficiency in Ruby on Rails, Go, or Python
- Experience designing scalable architectures and reliable distributed systems
- Strong product judgment connecting technical decisions to customer needs and business outcomes
- Comfort with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and rapid experimentation
- Pragmatic technical decision-making and a high bar for maintainable, production-quality code
- Clear communication, collaborative leadership, and confidence to challenge assumptions and surface blockers
- Comfort using AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor and Claude
- Experience building AI-powered products, LLM applications, or recruiting agents
- Background in product-led growth, A/B testing, and improving activation or conversion
- Experience with Stripe integrations, payments, billing, or monetization
- Experience building recruiting tools, SaaS integrations, or employer-facing products
- Familiarity with promoted-content systems, attribution, or customer-facing analytics
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
