Handshake
AI
SeniorForwardDeployedEngineer
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“Senior Forward Deployed Engineer at Handshake. Skills: technical leadership, customer engagement, architecture, deployment, scaling solutions. Serve as a technical leader at the intersection of our engineering organization and our most strategic customers. Own the end-to-end lifecycle of high-impact deployments”
What You'll Achieve.
directly improve customer workflows and model performance; enable the team to scale deployments efficiently
Industry & Context.
translate ambiguous requirements into actionable engineering plans; architecting, building, and scaling solutions; performance optimization; scaling of full-stack applications
5 days/week in-office
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
5+ years of professional software engineering experience, meaningful time spent in customer-facing, solutions-oriented, or forward-deployed roles, proficiency with ReactJS and TypeScript, high bar for code quality, usability, and accessibility, Deep understanding of relational databases (e. g. , PostgreSQL), data modeling, system design, Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP), deployment pipelines, production operations at scale, Demonstrated ability to lead technical projects end-to-end in ambiguous environments with shifting requirements, Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, ability to build trust with both technical and non-technical audiences, Track record of mentoring engineers and raising the bar on engineering practices within a team
Nice to Have
Experience architecting and delivering production systems for LLMs or other AI-powered products in real-world, customer-facing environments, Background in building or contributing to component libraries, design systems, or reusable deployment frameworks, Proven experience with performance optimization and scaling of full-stack applications under real-world constraints and high-traffic conditions, Prior experience in a forward-deployed, solutions engineering, or technical consulting role at a high-growth company
What You'll Do.
Serve as a technical leader at the intersection of our engineering organization and our most strategic customers
Own the end-to-end lifecycle of high-impact deployments
Scoping complex technical requirements
and scaling solutions that directly improve customer workflows and model performance
Operate across the stack in highly ambiguous
fast-changing environments
Partner with AI labs and cross-functional stakeholders to deeply understand technical challenges
Translate ambiguous requirements into actionable engineering plans
Drive alignment across teams
and delivery of tailored
production-grade solutions for complex
high-impact customer needs
Mentor and uplevel other engineers through code reviews
architectural guidance
and establishing best practices for forward-deployed work
Make key architectural decisions around reliability
Set the technical direction for repeatable deployment patterns
and iterate on tools in response to real-time feedback
Create and maintain technical playbooks
and frameworks that enable the team to scale deployments efficiently
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
Partner with AI labs and cross-functional stakeholders; Drive alignment across teams; Mentor and uplevel other engineers
Communication Scope
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; ability to build trust with both technical and non-technical audiences
Process & Methodology
Lead technical projects end-to-end, Translate ambiguous requirements into actionable engineering plans
Full Job Description
ABOUT HANDSHAKE Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career, regardless of where they went to school or who they know. Today, we power 25 million job seekers, 1 million+ employers, and 1,600 educational institutions. In 2025, we started Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. We work directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data. We’ve grown from $0 to ~$1B run rate and pay ~$60M to over 30K individuals every month. Why join Handshake now: - Shape how every career evolves in the AI economy, at global scale, with impact your friends, family and peers can see and feel - Partner hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions - Work together with engineers, scientists, operators, and more from Palantir, Meta, Scale AI, and former YC founders - Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue About Handshake AI Human data is the core infrastructure to AI advancement. Frontier AI labs currently improve model capabilities with various data-intensive post-training techniques. We believe that data spend for AI training will increase by 3-5x in the next few years and continue for much longer as models take on new domains. Handshake AI supports all of the frontier AI labs, working on their most complex data at the largest scale. ABOUT THE ROLE As a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll serve as a technical leader at the intersection of our engineering organization and our most strategic customers, including leading AI labs. You'll own the end-to-end lifecycle of high-impact deployments—from scoping complex technical requirements to architecting, building, and scaling solutions that directly improve customer workflows and model performance. You'll operate across the stack in highly ambiguous, fast-changing environments, and your judgment will shape how we appr
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