Senior Software Engineer, Fellow Experience

Handshake • Full-time • Hybrid in San Francisco, California, United States • $200,000 - $235,000 / year • 2w ago

Fast Facts

Handshake is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to lead the technical vision and architecture of the Fellows Allocations team, enhancing project matching systems and onboarding processes for a rapidly growing career network in the AI economy.

Responsibilities: Architect and scale automatic allocations systems, drive engineering excellence, build and maintain onboarding journeys, and mentor team members to cultivate technical capability.

Skills: Proficient in TypeScript, full-stack development, and experience with backend systems; familiarity with Next.js, TRPC, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, and orchestration tools like Temporal is a plus.

Qualifications: 5+ years of software engineering experience with tech lead capabilities, proven ability to architect scalable systems, and strong communication skills; product engineering mindset preferred.

Location: San Francisco, California, United States

Compensation: $200000 - $235000 / Annually

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 Senior Software Engineer on the Fellows Allocations team, you will architect and scale the systems that power the middle-of-funnel experience for fellows, from project discovery through successful onboarding. You will own the technical vision for our auto-allocations system, which automatically matches fellows to projects based on profiles and project needs, directly impacting fellow volume and quality at scale. This is a high-visibility, customer-facing role with direct exposure to executive leadership, where your work addresses real, urgent needs with an extensive roadmap waiting to be built.

The Fellows Allocations team owns critical user journeys including the landing page experience for project invitations and applications, project onboarding flows (confidentiality agreements, video/camera checks, educational programs, reading materials), project-specific assessments and recordings, and the tools that support our growth team's manual matching efforts.

In this role, you will:

Lead the architecture and long-term technical vision for scaling our automatic allocations system, designing solutions that match fellows to projects with precision and efficiency.
Drive engineering excellence by establishing standards and best practices that elevate the team's technical capabilities.
Build and own the full journey from fellow verification through successful onboarding to the start of tasking.
Develop high-quality, high-velocity code while maintaining a strong balance between speed and product reliability.
Partner closely with product managers to deliver seamless user experiences, bringing strong product sense to technical decisions.
Mentor and grow engineers on the team, fostering a culture of ownership and technical excellence.
Respond to and resolve emergency situations tied to fellow onboarding volume, quality, and project matching.

Desired Capabilities

5+ years of software engineering experience with a backend-leaning orientation and demonstrated tech lead capabilities.
Strong proficiency in TypeScript and experience with full-stack development; our stack includes Next.js, TRPC, GraphQL, and PostgreSQL.
Experience building and scaling larger workflows and asynchronous job orchestration (experience with Temporal or similar systems is a plus).
Proven ability to architect systems at scale, ideally with experience at larger, more established companies solving complex problems.
Strong ownership mentality with high availability and dedication to the team's success.
Product engineer mindset; you think beyond the code to understand user impact and business outcomes.
Excellent communication skills and ability to partner effectively with product managers and cross-functional teams.
Opinionated about engineering best practices with the confidence to question existing code structures and drive improvements.

Extra Credit

Experience at companies solving similar problems (AI/human data platforms, large-scale matching systems).
Background at high-growth or established tech companies with exposure to larger-scale engineering challenges.
Familiarity with workflow orchestration tools like Temporal.