Senior Software Engineer, Handshake
Agentic Infrastructure
$176-220k
+ Equity
The career platform for Gen Z
Be an early applicant
The career platform for Gen Z
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$176-220k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To democratize access to opportunity and ensure any student can build a great career no matter who they know, where they live or what school they attend.
Role
Who you are
- 4-7 years of backend engineering experience, with strong proficiency in NodeJS, Typescript, &/or Python
- Experience designing & operating distributed systems at significant scale for developer experience
- Hands-on experience building with LLM orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar)
- Deep understanding of agent architectures: tool use, multi-step reasoning, memory management, & evaluation
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) & infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform
- Experience with Node, JavaScript, CICD, Docker
- A track record of shipping production systems with high reliability, low latency, & strong observability
- Strong communication skills & ability to drive alignment across engineering & cross-functional partners
Desirable
- Open-source contributions to LLM or agent frameworks
- Prior experience at an AI-native company or on a dedicated AI platform team
What the job involves
- Handshake is building the infrastructure layer that powers the next generation of AI agents across our platform
- As a Senior Software Engineer on our Agentic Infrastructure team, you'll be at forefront of AI at Handshake, will architect & build the foundational systems that allow AI agents to plan, execute, & operate autonomously at scale
- This is a rare greenfield opportunity to define how an AI-first company builds for the agentic era — at the intersection of infrastructure, AI, & direct product impact
- Architect & build the core agent orchestration layer — including tool use, memory, & multi-step reasoning systems — that powers AI-driven features for 20M+ users & 1M+ employers across Handshake's platform
- Design evaluation, observability, & reliability frameworks that ensure agent behavior is safe, auditable, & production-ready at scale
- Establish engineering standards for agentic development across Handshake's platform teams, enabling every engineer to build with AI
- Partner with ML, product, & platform engineers to ship agent-powered features from infrastructure to production at Olympic pace
Our take
The three founders of Handshake established their company in an attempt to eliminate inequality and make the student hiring landscape fairer. The Handshake platform acts as a LinkedIn for college students, pairing students from every walk of life with more than 650K employers, including the entire Fortune 500, which includes Google and Nike.
The graduate recruitment platform is open to any student with a valid @.edu email address, with more than 17M active users from thousands of colleges and universities. With a student-first philosophy, the company generates revenue from both universities and employers rather than students.
Valued at $3.5B, Handshake has gained traction in a competitive market, although it has strong competition from recruiting giants LinkedIn and Indeed. It stands out, however, by helping students build new relationships and skills, rather than simply making connections to people they already know.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
2% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Jan 2022
$200m
SERIES F
May 2021
$80m
SERIES E
Total funding: $434m
Company benefits
- Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical , dental, and vision coverage
- Fertility and family forming: Through a partnership, Handshake offers comprehensive family benefits, including infertility treatments and a $15K stipend, to its employees.
- LGTBQ+ coverage: All medical plans cover transgender services.
- Mental health: Discounts on a variety of wellness apps and an Employee Assistance Program with access to five free counseling sessions.
- Tax savings: Tax-advantaged benefits to save money on healthcare, dependent care, and other expenses.
- Learning & development: Employees are provided with an annual stipend to use towards professional development, career development workshops, manager trainings, and 1-on-1 coaching through external partnerships
- Community leader support: Employee Resource Group leaders are compensated with a quarterly bonus for the high-impact work the role requires
- Parental leave: Leaves of 16 weeks for birth-giving parents and 10 weeks for non-birth-giving parents; the policy applies to adoptions as well. Handshake also partners to provide one-on-one coaching on preparing for leave and coming back from leave
- Flexible time off: No accrued time off or waiting period to take vacation. Two paid flexible holiday days off to observe holidays that closely align with religious, cultural, and personal needs
- Sabbatical: Paid six-week sabbatical to recharge and reset beginning at six years of continuous, full-time employment, and every four years thereafter
- Volunteer time off: Two days off for social and civil activism, volunteer work, and/or any related activities, including attending and participating in protests
- Life & disability insurance: Essential benefits and automatic coverage with basic life insurance, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage.
- 401k match: Dollar-for-dollar match up to 1% of pay, with a max of $1,200 per year.
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Garrett Lord
(Co-Founder & CEO)Majored in Computer Science at Michigan Technological University. Interned at Palantir Technologies before co-founding Handshake in 2012.
Ben Christensen
(Co-Founder)Graduated from Michigan Technological University with a degree in Computer Networking & Systems Administration. Interned at Target and worked as a Developer at Up and Running Software. Was part of Arbor Networks' ASERT Security Research team.
Scott Ringwelski
(Co-Founder)Attained a degree in Computer Software Engineering from Michigan Technological University. Co-founded Handshake in 2012.
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