---
title: 'Senior Software Engineer, International Expansion at Handshake'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-international-expansion-handshake-india-fbm3vbb9tmbs'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Senior Software Engineer, International Expansion at Handshake

- **Company:** [Handshake](https://feeny.ai/companies/handshake)
- **Location:** India
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/handshake/e1f105e9-f143-43d2-bb05-c0ab4edd52f7

## 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 Software Engineer on this team, you'll own the full stack of impact - from the experiences our fellows rely on every day to the internal tools and platform capabilities that let our operators run the business with speed and quality. This role sits at the intersection of product engineering, platform infrastructure, and operations, functioning much like an embedded engineering group: you'll partner directly with Growth, Product, Operations, and ML to deeply understand both fellow-facing and operator workflows, and translate them into reliable, scalable systems.

As AI continues to reshape how people learn, work, and build careers, you'll help define the consumer experience that sets our fellows up for success, while also building the internal tooling and technical foundations that let operators - and the business as a whole move just as fast. Whether you're shipping customer-facing features, architecting internal automation, or modernizing core infrastructure, your work will have a direct and lasting impact on our users, our operators, and our ability to innovate at scale.

This is a highly collaborative, communication-heavy role. Success requires strong technical fundamentals, systems thinking, and high EQ — the ability to translate ambiguous or urgent needs (from fellows, operators, or the business) into clear technical solutions, along with the judgment to balance rapid execution with thoughtful, long-term engineering decisions. We're looking for engineers who are excited to take ownership of meaningful problems, influence technical direction, and shape not just what we build, but how we build it.

In This Role, You Will

- Build and own core experiences across the fellow platform, including onboarding, the fellow homepage, and project opportunities, while designing systems that power fellow allocation and evolve manual operational workflows into scalable platform capabilities.
- Embed with operators to understand their processes, pain points, and success metrics, and architect internal tools, automations, and workflows that improve operational throughput, accuracy, and visibility.
- Partner closely with Growth, Operations, Product, and ML to understand business processes and translate them into high-quality technical solutions.
- Lead projects end-to-end - from discovery, scoping, and technical design through implementation, rollout, and continuous iteration.
- Drive architectural improvements that reduce technical debt and establish scalable service layers as the platform grows.
- Balance speed and quality by making thoughtful engineering tradeoffs that support both immediate business needs and long-term maintainability.
- Collaborate across teams to build reliable, secure systems that improve both the fellow and operator experience, and to drive adoption and measurable impact.
- Mentor other engineers through technical leadership, project ownership, and strong engineering practices - including in a "player-coach" capacity as the team grows.

Desired Capabilities

- 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of owning production systems end-to-end, from requirements through production support.
- Experience leading technical projects involving multiple contributors, including coordinating work and driving successful execution.
- Strong proactive communication and stakeholder management skills, with high empathy/EQ and the ability to partner deeply with non-engineering teams and translate ambiguous or urgent needs into effective technical solutions.
- Excellent engineering judgment and systems thinking - able to design scalable architectures, pick the right level of abstraction, and make pragmatic tradeoffs without over-building.
- Experience improving or modernizing existing systems, balancing rapid product development with long-term platform health.
- Experience building internal tools, workflow systems, or automation for operations-heavy teams (or analogous customer-embedded roles like FDE/solutions engineering).
- Comfortable operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments where priorities evolve quickly.
- Passion for building products and tools that directly impact customer and operator experience at scale.

Extra Credit

- Experience building marketplace, allocation, matching, or workflow systems.
- Experience with AI workflows and agentic infrastructure.
- Experience designing service-oriented architectures or platform infrastructure that enables future product growth.
- Experience with workflow/backlog systems, intake processes, and operational analytics (instrumentation, dashboards, QA).
- Background building tooling for knowledge-work operations (e.g., case management, review/approval flows, data quality tooling).
- Excited to apply expertise in complex, at-scale systems to an AI-driven, rapidly evolving product landscape.

## YOU’LL THRIVE HERE IF YOU:

- Are motivated by solving operational problems that have direct, measurable impact.
- Want to be part of a company shaping the future of AI through human data.
- Can navigate ambiguity, act with urgency, and keep multiple workstreams moving in parallel.

Perks:

- Generous Equity Grant vested over 4 years
- Housing Bonus: 1.3 Lakhs spread throughout the first year
- Well Defined Performance Bonus ranging between 10 - 100% of base
- Medical Insurance Coverage
- Food credit for every in person day.

## 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/)

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