Handshake

Providing technical support, resolving inquiries, managing contracts and payments, and improving customer experience for AI research fellows. | 1-3 years support experience, technical aptitude with BI tools, strong communication skills, and ability to troubleshoot complex workflows. | 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 Handshake is expanding into AI research and development, building a world-class network of expert Fellows - PhDs, researchers, and subject matter specialists - who contribute to cutting-edge AI through specialized research, model evaluation, and domain-specific applications. Handshake is looking to bring on a Handshake AI Support Specialist, Contractor to provide payments, contracts, and general support to our Handshake MOVE Fellows. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Handshake AI Support, this role is a 6 month contract with the possibility of contract extension or conversion to a permanent role upon evaluation of fit for the role and company needs. If you are resourceful and attuned to detail, love digging into a complex and technical product, building strong relationships with customers and team members, and solving a wide variety of questions, bugs, and workflow needs - this is the role for you! This is not a typical support job where you’ll exclusively work on tickets; it’s an opportunity to make Handshake AI feel like the premier destination for experts looking to challenge the boundaries of AI. You’ll have opportunities to interact with both Handshake leadership and our expert network directly. You will work closely with our Handshake AI Ops, Finance, Product, Engineering, Projects and Fellow Experience (FEXP) teams to provide efficient and effective support, and contribute to an overall seamless experience for Fellows. You will primarily focus on handling payment questions, disputes, and managing contracts to ensure our Fellows have a smooth experience. You will also assist with general Handshake AI support, help unblock our users, share trends and learnings with the Handshake AI Team, and continue to improve the customer experience and our team operations. As an advocate for our Fellows, you’ll improve the Handshake AI experience and make an impact on our mission to build the infrastructure for the next era of human-AI collaboration. Exceptional team members may have the ability to grow their career into new roles across the Handshake AI Ops team. • Contribute 40 hours per week during our business hours, Monday through Friday, and occasional overtime as needed. Provide amazing email, zoom, and/or phone support to Handshake MOVE Fellows via email, internal ticketing systems, and other channels. Your day-to-day will consist of: • 80%: resolving questions and disputes, removing or updating contracts reporting bugs, sharing feedback, and other general inquiries. You’ll typically handle up to 75-100 tickets per day. • 10% on priority initiatives or improving business process • 5%: attending team meetings (1-3 per week) • 5%: completing administrative tasks (emails, checking daily announcements, training, etc.) • Tickets will involve highly technical troubleshooting and workflows, building and troubleshooting custom reports using Big Query, SQL, Google Sheets, and/or Looker, and making sure to provide tailored, personal responses while building relationships • Use app environments, troubleshooting tools, internal and external documentation, and team communication channels, to find the quality answer for a wide range of users • Maintain a standard level of excellence in regards to response times, resolution times, equal share of queue, and the quality of the customer support experience • Be both a support specialist and an experienced consultant for Fellows • Utilize internal tools to manage issues between Operations, Finance, Product, Engineering, Project, and Support teams • Analyze common issues that Fellows have and coordinate with our Product and Ops teams to ideate and implement solutions Desired Capabilities • 1 - 3 years of support, Sales Development Representative or similar experience • BI tools: Experience with or strong aptitude to quickly learn Big Query, SQL, Google Sheets advanced formulas and analysis, and Looker to pull payment and project data and compare with our tracking systems • Self-Starter: Excited to approach new challenges and have a high bar for personal excellence • Technical Aptitude: Ability to learn technical tools and concepts quickly • Resilience: Comfort with change and ambiguity. We’re a growing startup and always refining processes, tools, etc! • Teamwork: Connects with teammates and actively builds a sense of community on the Handshake AI and Support teams. Collaborates with manager and colleagues and team on daily or weekly guidance on ticket workflows and prioritization. • Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a clear ability to communicate complex topics with simple language. • Results oriented and ownership: Ability to maintain or exceed ticket and quality goals. High level of self accountability and integrity for processes and metrics. • Passion for the problem: Desire to help give people the chance to build the career they want, no matter where they're from or what school they attend • EQ: A strong sense of empathy with users of our products and cross functional partners • Critical Thinking: High attention to detail and ability to troubleshoot with limited information and a clear plan of action. • Expertise and Curiosity: Retains knowledge, shows ability to partially solve issues independently, and asks questions to increase personal knowledge. Isn’t afraid to do independent research on third party tools and systems to find answers. • Growth Mindset: Positive, eager to learn, utilizes resources, takes and gives feedback, connects with support team and key cross team stakeholders. • Diversity and Inclusion: Eagerness to contribute to and help build a diverse and inclusive team and exhibit these values internally and externally with customers or users. • Coverage: Can provide a regular schedule to provide consistent assistance to users. Based in the U.S. and is not a current student. Extra Credit • Big Query, SQL, Google Sheets/Excel, Deel, and/or Hubstaff experience • ZenDesk experience • AI/LLM usage and training Experience • Programming, IT, data analysis or computer science courses, major or certifications • FinTech customer service experience • Previous experience working in an Enterprise SaaS Customer Support team at a fast-paced startup or hypergrowth tech company, or customer focused position involving technical knowledge of a company's products and services • Relevant experience in cross - functional communication or close partnerships with various teams (Success, Sales, Product etc) Location & Work Expectations • No visa sponsorship available #LI-AG3

Design and scale infrastructure and systems for LLM post-training and evaluation, develop benchmarks, optimize performance, and mentor engineers. | 5+ years applied ML or distributed systems experience, proficiency in Python and PyTorch, experience with large-scale data pipelines and evaluation frameworks, strong communication and leadership skills. | 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 Senior Research Engineer, you’ll play a leading role in designing and scaling the infrastructure, systems, and frameworks that power the next generation of LLM post-training and evaluation. You’ll work closely with research scientists to define methodologies, push the boundaries of data quality and benchmark design, and mentor other engineers to raise the technical bar across the team. This role is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of research and large-scale engineering, with the ability to translate complex research insights into robust, production-grade systems. You will: • Architect, implement, and optimize large-scale post-training systems and data processing pipelines, ensuring reliability, scalability, and performance. • Lead the development of next-generation LLM benchmarks and evaluation frameworks, defining standards for measuring advanced reasoning, alignment, and knowledge capabilities. • Design and enforce rigorous methodologies for verifying data integrity and quality across highly specialized datasets. • Drive software/hardware performance optimization to accelerate experimentation and deployment (e.g., memory usage, training throughput, distributed systems). • Partner with cross-disciplinary teams—including research scientists, domain experts, and product engineers—to validate and productionize model improvements. • Mentor junior engineers and shape technical best practices for the post-training and evaluation engineering pod. • Influence long-term research engineering strategy by identifying opportunities to systematize evaluation and data quality at scale. Desired Capabilities • Advanced proficiency in Python with a track record of building clean, maintainable, and performant codebases. • 5+ years of experience in applied ML, large-scale distributed systems, or post-training infrastructure (RLHF, DPO, constitutional AI, etc.). • Strong expertise with PyTorch and modern ML training frameworks; familiarity with distributed training and inference optimization. • Proven experience designing and operating data pipelines, benchmark frameworks, or large-scale evaluation systems. • Ability to drive technical projects end-to-end: from architecture design to implementation, scaling, and monitoring. • Clear and confident communication skills; ability to collaborate across research and engineering disciplines and influence technical direction. Extra Credit • Experience leading small teams or mentoring engineers. • Track record of open-source contributions in ML infrastructure or evaluation frameworks. • Publications or public talks in applied ML, evaluation, or systems research. • Passion for building responsible AI systems and considering the societal/ethical implications of model evaluation. 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: Stipends for home office setup, internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office 🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days, winter #ShakeBreak where our whole office closes for a week! 🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.

Lead operational excellence and customer experience improvements by diagnosing systemic issues, managing frontline teams, and collaborating cross-functionally to implement solutions. | 2-4 years in business operations or customer experience leadership, strong analytical skills with SQL and Looker, proven process building and change management experience, and ability to influence cross-functional teams. | 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 We’re looking for a Lead who thrives at the intersection of business operations and customer experience leadership. In this role, you’ll drive operational excellence across our Customer Experience & Strategy function while leading and developing a high-performing frontline team. You’ll spend ~70% of your time diagnosing and fixing systemic operational pain points — using data, process design, and cross-functional influence — and ~30% managing and coaching our frontline managers and agents. You’ll have the mandate not just to surface issues, but to own solutions end-to-end. • Lead operational improvement projects to streamline workflows, reduce escalations, and enhance the customer experience. • Use data (SQL, Looker, spreadsheets) to uncover trends, identify root causes, and measure improvements. • Partner with Product, Engineering, and other cross-functional teams to design and implement systemic fixes. • Drive change management for new tools, processes, and policies, securing buy-in across stakeholders. • Define, track, and report on KPIs for both operational performance and team engagement. • Build a culture of empathy for frontline employees and customers (Handshake Fellows), translating their pain points into scalable solutions. Desired Capabilities • 2-4 years in BizOps, Strategy & Operations, or Customer Experience/Support Ops leadership in high-growth tech, consulting, or marketplace environments. • Proven experience building processes from scratch, and leading change management initiatives. • Strong analytical skills with fluency in SQL, Looker, and spreadsheets; able to quantify impact and measure results. • Track record of identifying operational inefficiencies and implementing solutions end-to-end. • Ability to influence without authority and collaborate effectively across Product, Engineering, and senior leadership. • Comfort toggling between high-level strategy and hands-on execution. • Bias toward action and a builder mentality — you don’t just document problems, you fix them. 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: Stipends for home office setup, internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office 🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days, winter #ShakeBreak where our whole office closes for a week! 🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.