Forward Deployed Engineer

Handshake

1001-5000

United States

Location

San Francisco United States

Salary

(Yearly)

(Hourly)

Undisclosed

USD

150000

190000

About Handshake AI

Handshake is building the career network for the AI economy. Our three-sided marketplace connects 18 million students and alumni, 1,500+ academic institutions across the U.S. and Europe, and 1 million employers to power how the next generation explores careers, builds skills, and gets hired.

Handshake AI is a human data labeling business that leverages the scale of the largest early career network. We work directly with the world’s leading AI research labs to build a new generation of human data products. From PhDs in physics to undergrads fluent in LLMs, Handshake AI is the trusted partner for domain-specific data and evaluation at scale.

This is a unique opportunity to join a fast-growing team shaping the future of AI through better data, better tools, and better systems—for experts, by experts.

Now’s a great time to join Handshake. Here’s why:

Leading the AI Career Revolution: Be part of the team redefining work in the AI economy for millions worldwide.
Proven Market Demand: Deep employer partnerships across Fortune 500s and the world’s leading AI research labs.
World-Class Team: Leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, just to name a few.
Capitalized & Scaling: $3.5B valuation from top investors including Kleiner Perkins, True Ventures, Notable Capital, and more.

About the Role

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you’ll work directly with our customers, leading AI labs to understand their most pressing technical challenges, then design and deploy solutions that directly impact their workflows and model performance. You’ll work across the stack, ship quickly, and iterate based on real-world feedback, often in highly ambiguous and fast-changing environments. Your work will deliver real-world impact for our customers.

This is a unique opportunity to combine deep engineering work with direct customer engagement—shaping not just the “what” but the “how” of our most important deployments.

Location: San Francisco, CA or New York City, NY | 5 days/week in-office

Work at the intersection of partner AI labs and our engineering and operations teams to identify needs, gather requirements, and design effective solutions.
Work with custom asks from customers to rapidly design, prototype, and deploy tailored solutions that address unique and high-impact challenges.
Devise solutions to complex technical challenges and take ownership of delivery from concept through deployment.
Rapidly prototype, test, and iterate on tools in response to real-time feedback.
Contribute to architectural decisions and establish best practices for reliability, scalability, and security in high-impact deployments.
Document solutions and create technical playbooks for repeatable, scalable deployment processes.

Desired Capabilities

2–4 years of professional software engineering experience, ideally in a role involving direct customer interaction or solution deployment.
Proficiency with ReactJS and TypeScript, with an eye for detail, usability, and accessibility.
Solid understanding of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) and data modeling.
Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (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

Extra Credit

Experience delivering production systems for LLMs or other AI-powered products in real-world environments.
Familiarity with component libraries, design systems, and building reusable, maintainable interfaces for rapid deployment.
Exposure to performance optimization and scaling of frontend or full-stack applications under real-world constraints.