Engineering Manager, Handshake
Handshake AI
$230-260k
+ Equity
5 days a week in office
The career platform for Gen Z
Open for applications
The career platform for Gen Z
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$230-260k
+ Equity
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
- 2–4+ years of experience in an engineering leadership role (team lead, tech lead, or manager), in addition to prior experience as a hands-on engineer
- Strong technical background in full-stack development, particularly with ReactJS, TypeScript, and backend technologies like Node.js or Python
- Experience leading teams building end-user products with a focus on quality, usability, and performance
- Solid understanding of system architecture, relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL), and cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, GCP)
- Proven track record of successfully shaping product direction and delivering results in a fast-paced environment
- Excellent communication skills, with an ability to influence across technical and non-technical audiences
Desirable
- Experience managing teams building AI or LLM-powered products
- Familiarity with design systems and scalable frontend architecture
- Deep focus on developer experience, tooling, and internal platform improvements
- Passion for working on products that accelerate research and innovation
What the job involves
- This is a unique opportunity to join a fast-growing team shaping the future of AI through better data, better tools, and better systems—for experts, by experts
- We’re expanding our team and seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the development of high-impact products that empower our Fellows in driving AI innovation
- This is a unique opportunity to play a pivotal role in a fast-growing space, working directly with leading AI labs and tech companies to develop solutions that enhance research workflows, model evaluation processes, and domain-specific AI applications
- As an Engineering Manager, you'll play a key role in shaping technical direction, fostering engineering excellence, and ensuring your team delivers reliable, scalable, and user-centric solutions
- You’ll collaborate closely with product, design, and research stakeholders to prioritize work, unblock challenges, and drive execution
- Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team, fostering a culture of ownership, inclusion, and technical excellence
- Partner with product and design teams to define roadmaps, scope projects, and deliver end-to-end solutions aligned with user needs
- Drive technical architecture and decision-making, ensuring systems are scalable, maintainable, and performant
- Mentor engineers across experience levels, supporting their growth through regular feedback, coaching, and development opportunities
- Oversee day-to-day execution, ensuring high-quality code, effective reviews, and healthy team velocity
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.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 10 more jobs at Handshake