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 Software Engineer I, you'll build the products and systems that help employers reach relevant talent and help job seekers discover opportunities they might otherwise miss. Promotions powers promoted content across Handshake's job search, feed, digest, inbox, and promoted messages—connecting employer investment to meaningful hiring outcomes.
You'll work across the full stack, from customer-facing experiences to distributed services and the data that makes results measurable. The team's platform spans auctions, promoted-content delivery, event tracking, applicant attribution, and analytics. You'll help make these systems scalable, reliable, and understandable, so employers can see the value of their promotions and job seekers encounter relevant opportunities.
This is a hands-on product engineering role with meaningful end-to-end ownership. You'll partner closely with product, design, data, and other engineering teams to turn ambiguous problems into well-scoped solutions, make pragmatic architectural decisions, and carry projects from early design through launch and iteration. You'll join an experienced team where you can shape what gets built while raising the quality of the systems behind it.
This job is 5 days a week onsite in our San Francisco, CA office.
Your Role
Own full-stack Promotions initiatives from design through launch, partnering with product, design, and data to improve employer and job-seeker experiences.
Build scalable, reliable systems for promoted-content delivery, auctions, event tracking, attribution, and analytics.
Strengthen applicant attribution and customer-facing analytics so employers can understand and trust their promotion results.
Use customer feedback and performance data to measure impact and guide product iteration.
Raise engineering quality through production ownership, testing, observability, thoughtful code reviews, and mentorship.
Desired Capabilities
1-3 years of full-stack engineering experience.
Proven ownership of complex software projects, with strong product judgment and comfort navigating ambiguity.
Proficiency in Ruby on Rails, Go, or Python.
Experience designing scalable distributed systems, with sound judgment around reliability, performance, and data consistency.
Clear communication, collaborative technical leadership, and a pragmatic approach to quality and delivery.
Strong debugging skills and attention to detail, with experience investigating production issues across services and data flows.
Comfort using AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor and Claude while maintaining code quality and correctness.
Extra Credit
Experience with advertising technology, auctions, marketplaces, or recommendation systems.
Background in attribution, analytics, event-driven architectures, or data pipelines.
Experience building employer-facing or SaaS products and using experimentation to improve customer outcomes.
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
- 1-3 years of full-stack engineering experience
- Experience owning complex software projects
- Proficiency in Ruby on Rails, Go, or Python
- Experience designing scalable distributed systems
- Strong reliability, performance, and data consistency judgment
- Clear communication and collaborative technical leadership
- Pragmatic approach to quality and delivery
- Strong debugging skills and attention to detail
- Experience investigating production issues across services and data flows
- Comfort using AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor and Claude
- Experience with advertising technology, auctions, marketplaces, or recommendation systems
- Background in attribution, analytics, event-driven architectures, or data pipelines
- Experience building employer-facing or SaaS products
- Experience using experimentation to improve customer outcomes
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
