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.
As a Software Engineer on the Handshake AI Enterprise team, you'll own the product experience layer of AI applications we deploy directly into enterprise customer environments. You'll work closely with customers to deeply understand their workflows, translate ambiguous needs into crisp product decisions, and build end-to-end solutions that are genuinely delightful to use, not just functional.
This is not a role for engineers who treat product quality as an afterthought. We believe engineering craft is a meaningful part of what makes AI applications succeed in enterprise environments, and you'll be the person who holds that bar across every deployment.
We're looking for engineers across a range of experience — people who've already built high-craft product experiences, and those ready to set the bar for a team from the ground up. This is a unique opportunity to pair direct customer impact with founding-team ownership, helping define what high-craft enterprise AI product looks like from the ground up.
Location: San Francisco, CA | 5 days/week in-office
What You'll Do
Own the product experience of AI applications deployed into enterprise customer environments, from initial discovery through iteration
Work directly with customers to understand their workflows, pain points, and what "great" looks like in their context
Translate ambiguous customer needs into clear, well-crafted product and technical decisions
Build high-quality, full-stack features, from data models and APIs to the interfaces people actually use
Collaborate closely with Applied AI and Platform engineers on your deployment team to ship cohesive, production-grade solutions
Iterate rapidly based on real usage and customer feedback, with tight feedback loops
Establish product engineering standards and reusable patterns that help the team scale quality as we grow
Surface insights from customer deployments that inform Handshake's core product direction
What We're Looking For
5-6+ years of engineering experience, full-stack with strong backend depth
Product engineering experience with strong fullstack instincts and a high bar for product quality
Experience at a company where craft was a genuine priority, you've helped hold that bar, not just ship features
Proficiency across the stack: comfortable with modern backend frameworks, APIs, and data modeling, as well as React/TypeScript on the frontend
Strong opinions about product experience, you notice when things feel off and you fix them, regardless of which layer the problem lives in
Ability to make pragmatic technical decisions that serve the product, not just the architecture
Comfort working in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with real customers and real stakes
Strong communication skills, you'll be in customer conversations regularly and need to translate between business needs and technical decisions
Extra Credit
Experience building or integrating AI-powered features in production, customer-facing products
Background working in or alongside enterprise deployment environments
History of close collaboration with designers, or a background in design yourself
Experience at a company with a forward-deployed or embedded engineering model
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.
Company size reports differ between sources.
Company data includes TheirStack, LinkedIn observations · last observed Sep 28, 2026.
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