Software Engineer, Handshake
$170-200k
Offers Equity
Monday-Friday in office
5 days a week in office
The career platform for Gen Z
Be an early applicant
The career platform for Gen Z
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$170-200k
Offers Equity
Monday-Friday in office
5 days a week in office
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
- 3–5 years of professional software engineering experience building full-stack applications
- Strong proficiency in TypeScript across frontend and backend surfaces
- Hands-on experience with modern web stacks (React, Next.js, GraphQL, Ruby on Rails)
- Solid command of relational databases (PostgreSQL) and thoughtful data modeling
- Track record of owning features independently and driving them to completion
- Strong communicator who collaborates well with product, design, and cross-functional partners
- Comfortable navigating ambiguity and making sound tradeoffs in a fast-paced environment
Desirable
- Experience building AI-powered products, conversational interfaces, or agentic frameworks (e.g., OpenAI APIs)
- Familiarity with workflow orchestration tools like Temporal or async job systems
- Exposure to marketplaces, matching systems, or multi-step onboarding flows
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) and deployment pipelines
- Background at high-growth or scaling technology companies
- Familiarity with design systems and component libraries for rapid deployment
What the job involves
- As a Software Engineer II at Handshake, you'll own meaningful pieces of our core product—building the systems that power how millions of users discover opportunities, connect with employers, and launch their careers. You're past the fundamentals and ready to take on more: driving features end-to-end, contributing to technical design, and raising the bar for the engineers around you
- You'll work closely with product managers, designers, and senior engineers to ship full-stack experiences that are reliable, scalable, and user-obsessed. This is a role for someone who wants real ownership, not just tickets
- Own features end-to-end across frontend and backend, from technical design through production and iteration
- Build scalable full-stack systems powering core user journeys—search, discovery, matching, and onboarding flows
- Ship backend APIs, async workflows, and frontend experiences with a high bar for reliability and performance
- Contribute meaningfully to architecture discussions, helping establish patterns the team can build on
- Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code and actively participate in code reviews
- Partner with product and design to translate ambiguous requirements into polished user experiences
- Identify and address technical debt, system reliability gaps, and performance bottlenecks proactively
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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