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Handshake is a career platform serving 25 million job seekers, 1 million+ employers, and 1,600 educational institutions. In 2025, the company launched Handshake AI, a rapidly scaling data business supporting frontier AI labs with human-generated training data. The business has grown from $0 to ~$1B run rate in under a year, paying ~$60M monthly to over 30K contributors.
As Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, you will define and drive the technical strategy for how Handshake delivers engineered solutions to strategic customers, including leading AI labs. You'll operate as a trusted technical partner to both customers and internal leadership, owning the vision for how forward-deployed engineering scales as a function while remaining deeply hands-on in solving deployment challenges.
Key responsibilities include: defining technical strategy and architectural vision for forward-deployed engineering; serving as senior technical point of contact for complex, high-value customer engagements; driving cross-functional alignment between forward-deployed engineering, product, platform, and customer teams; architecting and delivering production-grade systems for novel, high-ambiguity challenges; establishing engineering best practices and reusable frameworks; mentoring senior and mid-level engineers; and identifying systemic gaps in tooling, infrastructure, or process.
Required: 8+ years professional software engineering experience with significant time in customer-facing, solutions-oriented, or forward-deployed roles at high-growth companies. Expert-level proficiency with ReactJS and TypeScript, strong command of relational databases (PostgreSQL), system design, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), CI/CD pipelines, and proven ability to lead ambiguous, high-stakes technical initiatives. Exceptional communication skills and demonstrated impact mentoring engineers.
Extra credit for experience defining technical strategy for LLM-powered or AI-native products, building forward-deployed or solutions engineering functions from the ground up, driving platform/infrastructure decisions, and partnering with C-level stakeholders at customer organizations.
Location: San Francisco, CA, 5 days/week in-office. Full-time role with equity, competitive compensation, 401(k) match, comprehensive health benefits, paid parental leave, $2,000 learning stipend, flexible PTO, and office perks including free lunch and gym.
