About Handshake
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 Handshake AI
Human data is the core infrastructure to AI advancement. Frontier AI labs currently improve model capabilities with various data-intensive post-training techniques. We believe that data spend for AI training will increase by 3-5x in the next few years and continue for much longer as models take on new domains. Handshake AI supports all of the frontier AI labs, working on their most complex data at the largest scale.
Handshake AI is rapidly building a new generation of human data products—from expert annotation platforms to AI interviewers and seamless payout infrastructure—all designed to accelerate research and improve model performance. We power career platforms at 92% of the top U.S. universities, giving us direct access to verified expert talent across a wide range of domains.
The Role
We're hiring a Senior UX Researcher to research how professionals across industries actually do their jobs, and turn that understanding into structured taxonomies that shape how frontier AI models are trained and evaluated. This work directly informs how the largest AI labs in the world invest in professional agent development. You'll also partner closely with our Reinforcement Learning Environments team, blending taxonomy research with traditional UXR to co-develop model training techniques.
Responsibilities
Taxonomy Development: Design, build, and continuously refine a scalable taxonomy of jobs, sub-domains, distinct user tasks, tools, and data used across various job roles.
Mixed-Methods Research: Plan and execute both qualitative (interviews, observational studies) and quantitative (surveys, behavioral data analysis) user research to inform and validate the taxonomy.
AI-Moderated Research at Scale: Leverage AI-moderated user research tools to conduct, synthesize, and extract qualitative insights from large user cohorts efficiently.
Task Prioritization & Ranking: Apply basic statistical methods (e.g., MaxDiff, forced ranking, opportunity scoring, weighting, and imputation) to evaluate, rank, and prioritize tasks based on user importance, frequency, and current pain points.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Product, Design, AI Research, Operations and Engineering to ensure the job and task taxonomy directly informs product strategy and feature development.
Insight Synthesis: Translate complex, multi-layered research data into clear, actionable frameworks, user models, and documentation.
You Have
Experience: 5+ years of experience in UX Research, Information Architecture, Taxonomy, Applied Economics, Human Computer Interaction or a closely related field focusing on user behavior.
Research Expertise: Proven ability to independently design and run rigorous qualitative and quantitative research studies.
Taxonomy & Frameworks: Strong understanding of classification systems, hierarchical modeling, and frameworks like Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD). Previous experience building taxonomies specifically for B2B software, HR tech, or professional tooling.
Statistical Literacy and Survey Science: Solid understanding of foundational statistics necessary for quantitative user research. You should be comfortable designing surveys and analyzing data to objectively rank and prioritize user tasks.
Tech-Forward Approach: Experience with, or a strong willingness to master, AI-moderated user research platforms to scale qualitative data collection.
Communication: Exceptional analytical and communication skills, with the ability to present complex architectural concepts to stakeholders simply and effectively.
Nice to Have
Familiarity with advanced prioritization frameworks or willingness to develop your own framework.
Experience with advanced scripting techniques used for data analysis.
Bayesian statistics
We Offer
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
- Strong understanding of AI systems and LLM development workflows
- Demonstrated experience leading UX research for complex, high-impact platforms (consumer and internal tools)
- Proven ability to deliver fast, high-impact insights that accelerate product development
- Experience informing content strategy, design, and workflows through research
- Experience conducting research that improves external services and operational workflows
- Deep understanding of usability and design principles
- Experience using lean research methods to deliver insights quickly
- Ability to synthesize qualitative and quantitative inputs, including product analytics
- Highly collaborative history working cross-functionally with product, design, engineering, operations, marketing, and leadership
- Track record of influencing product direction with research-backed recommendations
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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