Head of Strategic Projects, Handshake
$188-235k
+ Offers Equity + Offers Bonus
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
$188-235k
+ Offers Equity + Offers Bonus
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
- 7+ years in operationally intensive or execution heavy environments, such as AI data operations, marketplace operations, technical services, or strategy and operations
- At least 3+ years of leadership experience managing teams, ideally including multi layered teams with managers and ICs
- Prior experience in investment banking, private equity or management consulting strongly preferred
- Proven success driving cross functional outcomes in ambiguous, fast paced settings where stakes and expectations are high
- Experience operating as an owner of a business line or pod, accountable for both delivery and economics, is a strong plus
- This role works well for people who:
- Want to run a mini business with clear ownership for strategy, team, and results
- Like leading managers and ICs, setting a high bar, and giving direct feedback
- Can zoom out to design systems and zoom in to fix specific issues quickly
- Are comfortable with high visibility, high pressure, and shifting priorities
What the job involves
- As Head of Strategic Projects, Handshake AI, you will own an AI delivery pod that operates like its own mini business inside Handshake AI. You will lead a multi layered team of managers and SPLs (Strategic Project Leads) and be accountable for throughput, quality, and economics across some of our highest priority, highest pressure initiatives and customers
- You will run your pod like a GM, from Weekly Business Reviews and pod level planning to hands on problem solving when projects are at risk. You will sit at the center of Operations, Product, Growth, and Research, turning evolving data strategies into clear plans, systems, and teams that execute at a very high bar. This role is intensely operational, highly visible, and critical to how Handshake AI scales
- Owning and leading an AI delivery pod of 8 or more team members (managers and individual contributors) across complex, high stakes data and evaluation projects
- Running Weekly Business Reviews that track pod performance, drive alignment on metrics, and set clear priorities for SPLs and managers
- Operating as the GM of your pod, responsible for business outcomes, throughput, quality, and the operational P and L for your portfolio
- Partnering cross functionally with Product, Growth, and Research to translate evolving data strategies into executable project scopes, systems, and resourcing plans
- Ensuring high quality delivery of AI training and evaluation datasets, including scoping, workflow design, and system level guardrails for quality and scalability
- Driving systems level improvements that increase efficiency, quality, and capacity, and that can be adopted across other pods and teams
- Developing leaders and ICs on your team, through coaching, clear expectations, developmental feedback, and growth opportunities
- Fostering a high performing culture built on close collaboration, transparency, and a commitment to operational excellence that raises standards across Handshake AI
- What success looks like in the first 6 to 12 months:
- Your pod consistently delivers on or ahead of commitments for our most important AI data and evaluation programs, with clear, referenceable customer and research wins
- Core operational metrics for your pod improve materially, for example quality, on time delivery, throughput, utilization, and margin
- SPLs, managers, and peers see you as the clear owner of your business, and your pod becomes a model for how Handshake AI runs high intensity delivery
- Product, Growth, Research, and Engagement teams proactively pull you into planning and scoping for new initiatives because they trust your judgment, systems thinking, and bar for execution
- You will work closely with:
- Strategic Project Leads (SPLs) and managers to set direction, unblock delivery, build leadership capability, and maintain high standards
- Operations leadership on headcount planning, pod design, and long term capacity and capability needs
- Product, Growth, and Research on data strategies, experiment roadmaps, and new offerings that depend on reliable expert data and evaluation
- Engagement Managers and other GTM leaders to connect pod capacity and performance with customer commitments and revenue goals
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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