---
title: 'Senior Applied AI Engineer, Enterprise AI at Handshake'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-applied-ai-engineer-enterprise-ai-handshake-san-francisco-chwj6cv6s6m9'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-14'
---

# Senior Applied AI Engineer, Enterprise AI at Handshake

- **Company:** [Handshake](https://feeny.ai/companies/handshake)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $205k–$300k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-05-19
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/handshake/b777e140-6ccd-44e6-9709-5a43c4b1ca7a/application

**Skills:** Applied AI, Backend Engineering, Agent Architectures, AI Evaluation, Production AI Deployment, Multi-agent Systems, Enterprise Domain Expertise, Enterprise Security, VPC Deployments, AI Quality Measurement Tooling

> Embed directly with enterprise customers to define and build production-grade AI agents. Own the full stack from solution definition to deployment, designing evaluations and iterating on performance to solve real business problems.

## 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 an Applied AI Engineer at Handshake AI Enterprise, you'll embed directly inside enterprise customer environments as part of a small, expert team. You'll learn each customer's business deeply, their workflows, their bottlenecks, where the real leverage is, and translate that understanding into production-grade AI agents that measurably change how they operate. This isn't an implementation or consulting role. You'll own the full stack: defining the solution, building and deploying agents, designing evals, and iterating until performance actually moves. Over time, you'll become a genuine domain expert in your customer's vertical and use that expertise to build AI that keeps getting better. If you've built AI that works in the real world and want to do it again at much higher stakes, with better data, closer lab relationships, and a founding team that moves fast, this is the role.

## What You'll Do

- Embed directly with enterprise customers as part of a small deployment team, developing deep understanding of their business and workflows
- Define AI-driven solutions based on real business needs, not theoretical use cases
- Build and deploy production-grade agents tailored to specific customer use cases, owning end-to-end delivery
- Design and run evals to measure agent performance; iterate and hill-climb until results move
- Become a domain expert in your customer's vertical and use that expertise to build better AI over time
- Work closely with Product and Platform engineers on your team to ship cohesive, reliable solutions
- Establish engineering best practices, agent patterns, and reusable frameworks that help the team scale output without sacrificing quality
- Surface insights from deployments that inform Handshake's platform and product roadmap

## What We're Looking For

- 5-6+ years of engineering experience, full-stack with strong backend depth
- Strong applied AI engineering experience and backend depth
- Real-world experience building and shipping AI applications in production, not just fine-tuning or prototyping
- Strong understanding of agent architectures, evals, and how to measure and systematically improve AI performance
- Comfort working directly with enterprise customers in ambiguous, high-stakes environments
- Strong systems thinking, you can zoom out to the business problem and zoom in to the technical solution without losing either thread
- High ownership mentality, you care about outcomes, not just outputs
- Strong communication skills, you'll be in the room with senior stakeholders regularly and need to earn their trust quickly

Location: San Francisco, CA | 5 days/week in-office Extra Credit

- Background at a company with a forward deployment or field engineering model
- Experience building multi-agent systems in production
- Domain expertise in a specific enterprise vertical (recruiting, finance, ops, legal, etc.)
- Familiarity with enterprise security requirements, VPC deployments, or on-prem configurations
- History of building evals infrastructure or AI quality measurement tooling

## Perks

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported—and thrive at work and in life. The below benefits are for full-time US employees. 🎯 Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company 💰 Financial Wellness: 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching 🍼 Family Support: Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching 💝 Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, $500 wellness stipend 📚 Growth: $2,000 learning stipend, ongoing development 💻 Remote & Office: Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office 🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days 🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at [joinhandshake.com/careers](http://joinhandshake.com/careers).

## About Handshake

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Handshake is the career network for the AI economy, connecting job seekers with internships, full-time roles, freelance gigs, and AI training work through a three-sided marketplace.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series F; total funding $434M across 6 rounds)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2014
- **Founders**: Garrett Lord (CEO), Ben Christensen, Scott Ringwelski

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Career platform / Job marketplace / AI workforce infrastructure
- **Target customers**: B2C (job seekers, from students to experienced professionals) and B2B (employers including 100% of Fortune 500 and all foundational AI labs; also educational institutions)
- **Mission**: Expand access and improve outcomes for job seekers, helping the workforce stay ahead in the AI economy.

## Products & Services
- **Handshake Core Platform**: A three-sided marketplace connecting 25 million knowledge workers, 1,600+ schools, and 1 million employers. Features dynamic profiles, intelligent job matching, and interactive skill-building.
- **Handshake AI Enterprise**: AI-powered tools for employers and job seekers, including AI-driven matching, safety features, and pay management.
- **AI Trainer Gigs**: Paid, flexible, remote work for individuals to train and evaluate AI models (e.g., AI Evaluation Specialist, up to $40/hr) – no prior AI experience required.
- **Handshake Network**: Community events, career advice, and networking for students, experts, and professionals in AI and other fields.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding $434M (6 rounds); annual revenue $56.5M (LinkedIn estimate)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Board includes representatives from General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins, EQT Ventures, True Ventures, and Niantic. Strategic partners include 100% of the Fortune 500 and foundational AI labs.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount at 5,272 employees (+708.8% YoY per LinkedIn); 1M+ companies on platform; 25M users; expansion into AI trainer gig economy; new roles in HAI (Handshake AI Enterprise) such as Applied AI Engineer, AI Platform Engineer, and Forward Deployed Engineer.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Network effects**: The only three-sided marketplace linking students, employers, and educational institutions at scale.
- **AI-first positioning**: Deep integration of AI into job matching, skill-building, and new freelance training roles – creating a unique ecosystem for the AI economy.
- **Trusted by elite institutions**: 1,600+ partner schools and every Fortune 500 company provides unparalleled reach into early-career talent.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI economy expansion**: Building the “career network for the AI economy” – expanding beyond college students to all knowledge workers, and adding AI training gigs as a new revenue and engagement stream.
- **Product innovation**: Heavy investment in Handshake AI Enterprise (HAI), including AI matching, safety, and pay infrastructure.
- **Global scaling**: Offices in San Francisco, New York, UK, and Bangalore; operating in 32 countries.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values include “Students first,” “Leave nothing to chance,” “Own the outcome,” “Invent and reinvent,” and “Olympic pace.” Emphasis on ownership, urgency, and constant evolution.
- **Remote/Hybrid policy**: Many roles are based in San Francisco or New York, but some positions (e.g., Trust & Safety Specialist, Support Specialist) are remote in the US. Recent openings show both office and remote options.
- **Benefits**: Health & wellness support, financial support, time off, modern offices with meals, snacks, and social activities. Strong focus on career growth and learning.
- **Career growth**: Rapid headcount growth suggests ample internal mobility; roles range from engineering (ML, AI, data) to customer success, partnerships, and product management.

## Sources
1. [joinhandshake.com/about](https://joinhandshake.com/about/)
2. [joinhandshake.com/careers](https://joinhandshake.com/careers/)
3. [linkedin.com/company/team-handshake](https://www.linkedin.com/company/team-handshake)
4. [joinhandshake.com](https://joinhandshake.com/)

## Other roles at Handshake

- [Software Engineer II, Reinforcement Learning Environments](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-ii-reinforcement-learning-environments-handshake-india-fra8kaeep512) — India
- [Member of Technical Staff, Coding Agents](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-coding-agents-handshake-san-francisco-3enam33akj0c) — San Francisco, CA
- [Partnerships Lead - Integrations & Ecosystem](https://feeny.ai/job/partnerships-lead-integrations-ecosystem-handshake-united-states-tspy61x42312) — United States
- [Member of Technical Staff, Post-Training (India)](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-post-training-india-handshake-india-cxbfffpyvn0v) — India
- [Member of Technical Staff, AI Engineering (India)](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-ai-engineering-india-handshake-india-ntg51nad631j) — India
- [Senior Marketing Manager - Fellows](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-marketing-manager-fellows-handshake-san-francisco-jc7g3q2bdryk) — San Francisco, CA
- [HR, Manager - India](https://feeny.ai/job/hr-manager-india-handshake-india-vxw9svjvsrhj) — India
- [Forward Deployed Engineer I](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-i-handshake-india-v1y7tgkpw6yz) — India
- [Marketing Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/marketing-lead-handshake-nashville-ft3br6nsqvnz) — Nashville, TN
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-handshake-san-francisco-030gj3b0c6ts) — San Francisco, CA