Senior Engineering Manager, Handshake AI - job 1 of 2
Fast Facts
Join Handshake as a Senior Engineering Manager to lead an engineering team focused on enhancing AI development workflows and infrastructure.
Responsibilities: Lead a team of engineers to build core product and platform infrastructure, manage roadmaps, and drive technical strategy for scalable systems.
Skills: Proven leadership in engineering management, strong background in platform/distributed systems, and ability to execute in fast-moving environments.
Qualifications: Experience managing engineering teams for 3+ years and hands-on engineering for 5+ years; familiarity with AI or ML systems is a plus.
Location: In-office position located in San Francisco, California.
Compensation: $230000 - $300000 / Annually
About Handshake
Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, 1 million employers (including 100% of the Fortune 50), and every foundational AI lab trust Handshake to power career discovery, hiring, and upskilling, from freelance AI training gigs to first internships to full-time careers and beyond. This unique value is leading to unparalleled growth; in 2025, we tripled our ARR at scale.
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
- Work hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions
- Join a team with leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, among others
- Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue
About the Role
The Senior Engineering Manager at Handshake AI leads a core product and platform engineering team responsible for building the systems that integrate human expertise into AI development workflows.
This team owns critical infrastructure that connects talent networks, data operations, and research needs into scalable, reliable, and high-quality platforms. The role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and operations, ensuring our systems can support rapid growth, complex workflows, and frontier AI partners. You’ll lead a team of ~9 engineers today and are expected to add leadership capacity (including managing an EM) as we scale.
Location: San Francisco, CA. This is an in-office role, 5 days/week (no remote/hybrid)
What You’ll Do
- Lead, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team building core product and platform infrastructure
- Own roadmap and execution in close partnership with Product, Research, and Operations
- Drive architecture and technical strategy for scalable, reliable, and extensible systems
- Build modular platforms that enable new domains, workflows, and partners to launch quickly
- Raise the bar on engineering quality across reliability, observability, performance, and data integrity
- Foster a culture of ownership, velocity, and strong engineering fundamentals in a fast-moving, ambiguity-heavy environment
What We’re Looking For
- Engineering leader + builder: 3+ years managing teams, plus 5+ years hands-on engineering experience
- Strong people leadership: experience leading senior engineers; managing an EM (or equivalent scope) is a plus
- Execution in ambiguity: proven ability to align cross-functionally and deliver in fast-moving, unclear problem spaces
- Systems + product mindset: strong platform/distributed systems background, and the ability to turn research/ops needs into a clear roadmap, ship iteratively, and measure outcomes
Nice to Have
- Experience with RL training infrastructure, simulation systems, or evaluation platforms
- Human-in-the-loop systems (annotation, rubric tooling, QA pipelines, workflow platforms)
- Operations-heavy, tech-enabled environment experience
- Experience building systems used by applied ML or AI research teams
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, $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.
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Our mission at Handshake is to give all students the chance to build the career they want, no matter where they’re from or what school they attend.
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