Software Engineer, Handshake
Handshake AI
$150-190k
+ Equity
5 days a week in office
College career network and job board
Be an early applicant
College career network and job board
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$150-190k
+ Equity
5 days a week in office
501-1000 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 professional experience as a full-stack engineer, or frontend/backend engineer with demonstrable work across the stack
- Proficiency with ReactJS and TypeScript, with a strong eye for detail, usability, and accessibility
- Experience with backend development in Node.js, Python, or similar, and working with RESTful APIs or GraphQL
- Solid understanding of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) and basic data modeling
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, GCP) and deployment pipelines
- Passion for clean, maintainable code and building reliable, performant systems
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with a focus on continuous learning and improvement
Desirable
- Experience with building production systems for LLM or AI-related products
- Familiarity with component libraries and design systems
- Exposure to performance optimization in frontend applications
What the job involves
- We’re growing our team and looking for Software Engineers to build high-impact products that support our Fellows in their work, ensuring they have the tools and infrastructure needed to drive 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
- You will build critical features for products from the ground up, collaborating closely with product, design, and engineering teams to create seamless and effective experiences
- Collaborate on a cross-functional team with designers, product managers, and engineers to design, build, and maintain full-stack features and internal tools
- Own core product areas end-to-end—from backend API design and database modeling to frontend implementation and UX polish
- Contribute to architectural discussions, propose technical solutions, and participate in thoughtful code reviews
- Ensure quality, performance, and scalability across both frontend and backend systems
- Debug and resolve issues across the stack in collaboration with other team members
- Help evolve best practices around testing, observability, CI/CD, and technical documentation
- Work closely with users and stakeholders to understand requirements, gather feedback, and iterate quickly
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 12 million 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
- 💰Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company
- 🍼16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents
- 💝Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage. We also provide resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support
- 💻Handshake offers $500/£360 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months to create a productive and comfortable workspace at home
- 📚Generous learning & development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500 stipend for you to grow your skills and career
- 🏦401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year
- 🏝 All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. In addition, we offer 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off. Lastly, we have a Summer and Winter #ShakeBreak, two one-week periods of Collective Time Off
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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