Staff Forward Deployed Engineer
About Handshake
Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, 1 million employers (including 100% of the Fortune 50), and every foundational AI lab trust Handshake to power career discovery, hiring, and upskilling, from freelance AI training gigs to first internships to full-time careers and beyond. This unique value is leading to unparalleled growth; in 2025, we tripled our ARR at scale.
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
Work hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions
Join a team with leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, among others
Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue
About the Role
As a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll define and drive the technical strategy for how Handshake delivers engineered solutions to our most strategic customers, including leading AI labs. You'll operate as a trusted technical partner to both customers and internal leadership—owning the vision for how forward-deployed engineering scales as a function, while remaining deeply hands-on in solving our hardest deployment challenges. Your work will directly shape product direction, influence platform architecture, and set the technical bar for the entire forward-deployed engineering team.
This is a unique opportunity to pair organization-wide technical influence with direct customer impact—establishing the playbook for how Handshake's most critical partnerships are built, delivered, and scaled.
Location: San Francisco, CA | 5 days/week in-office
Define the technical strategy and architectural vision for forward-deployed engineering, ensuring solutions are scalable, repeatable, and aligned with Handshake's platform roadmap.
Serve as the senior technical point of contact for our most complex and highest-value customer engagements, including leading AI labs, translating strategic business needs into engineering direction.
Drive cross-functional alignment between forward-deployed engineering, product, platform, and customer-facing teams to ensure deployed solutions inform and improve the core product.
Architect and deliver production-grade systems for novel, high-ambiguity customer challenges—setting the standard for quality, reliability, and performance.
Establish engineering best practices, design patterns, and reusable frameworks that enable the forward-deployed team to scale output without sacrificing quality.
Mentor and develop senior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and customer empathy across the team.
Identify systemic gaps in tooling, infrastructure, or process and lead initiatives to address them, reducing friction for future deployments.
Desired Capabilities
8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant time in customer-facing, solutions-oriented, or forward-deployed roles at high-growth companies.
Proven ability to set technical direction and drive architectural decisions that span multiple teams or systems.
Expert-level proficiency with ReactJS and TypeScript, with deep knowledge of frontend performance, component architecture, and design systems.
Strong command of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL), data modeling, system design, and distributed systems principles.
Extensive experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP), CI/CD pipelines, and operating production systems at scale.
Track record of leading ambiguous, high-stakes technical initiatives from zero-to-one with minimal direction.
Exceptional communication skills with the ability to influence senior leadership, external partners, and cross-functional teams.
Demonstrated impact in mentoring engineers, shaping team culture, and elevating engineering standards across an organization.
Extra Credit
Experience defining the technical strategy for LLM-powered or AI-native products deployed in production, customer-facing environments.
Background in building and scaling forward-deployed, solutions engineering, or professional services engineering functions from the ground up.
History of contributing to or driving platform/infrastructure decisions that improved developer velocity or deployment reliability across teams.
Experience partnering directly with C-level or VP-level stakeholders at customer organizations to scope and deliver technical solutions.
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.