About the job
About Handshake
Handshake serves as the premier career network tailored for the AI-driven economy, connecting 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, and 1 million employers, including all of the Fortune 50. Our platform is trusted for career exploration, recruitment, and skills enhancement, catering to freelance AI training opportunities, internships, and full-time roles. This distinctive offering has fueled exceptional growth, with a projected tripling of our ARR by 2025.
Why consider joining Handshake now:
Influence the trajectory of careers in the AI sector globally, making a tangible impact for your community and network.
Collaborate closely with leading AI laboratories, Fortune 500 companies, and top-tier educational institutions.
Become part of a team comprising leaders from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, among others.
Help build a rapidly expanding business with significant revenue potential.
Role Overview
In the position of Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be pivotal in crafting and executing the technical strategy for how Handshake provides engineered solutions to our key clients, including premier AI labs. You will act as a trusted technical advisor to both our clients and internal leadership, taking ownership of the vision for scaling our forward-deployed engineering function while being actively involved in addressing our most complex deployment challenges. Your contributions will have a direct impact on product direction, influence platform architecture, and set the technical standards for the entire forward-deployed engineering team.
This role presents a unique chance to blend organization-wide technical influence with significant customer impact, establishing the framework for the development, delivery, and scaling of Handshake's most essential partnerships.
Location: San Francisco, CA | 5 days/week in-office
Define the technical strategy and architectural vision for forward-deployed engineering, ensuring that solutions are scalable, repeatable, and aligned with Handshake's platform roadmap.
Act as the senior technical point of contact for our most complex and high-value client engagements, translating strategic business needs into engineering direction.
Foster cross-functional collaboration among forward-deployed engineering, product, platform, and customer-facing teams to ensure deployed solutions enhance and inform the core product.
Design and implement production-grade systems for innovative customer challenges.

