Senior Operations Program Manager, Handshake
Central Operations
$172-215k
+ Equity
The career platform for Gen Z
Be an early applicant
The career platform for Gen Z
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$172-215k
+ 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
- 4-6 years of experience
- Strong analytical skills, with the ability to use data to inform decisions
- Experience using SQL (or similar tools) to pull and analyze data
- Demonstrated ability to manage cross-functional projects and influence stakeholders
- Comfort operating in ambiguous environments and driving clarity
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
Desirable
- Experience in Trust & Safety, Payments, or Contractor Operations
- Strong problem-solving skills with a structured approach to complex challenges
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate insights and recommendations
- Experience operating in fast-paced, metrics-driven environments
What the job involves
- The Senior Operations Program Manager, Central Ops will own and drive high-impact operational programs across critical functions including Trust & Safety, Pay Operations, and Contractor Management
- This role is responsible for designing, executing, and continuously improving processes that support scalable, high-quality operations
- As an individual contributor, you will partner cross-functionally with Legal, Finance, Product, Engineering, Analytics, and Delivery teams to identify opportunities, implement solutions, and track performance against key metrics
- You will play a key role in bringing structure to ambiguity, improving operational efficiency, and ensuring programs run smoothly end-to-end
- The ideal candidate is highly analytical, detail-oriented, and thrives in fast-paced environments where strong execution and cross-functional collaboration are essential
- Own and execute operational programs end-to-end across Central Ops functions
- Analyze performance data to identify trends, gaps, and opportunities for improvement
- Build and optimize processes to improve efficiency, quality, and scalability
- Partner cross-functionally to launch and iterate on operational initiatives
- Track and report on key metrics, ensuring programs meet performance targets
- Drive continuous improvement through structured problem-solving and experimentation
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 52 more jobs at Handshake