AI Product Counsel

Handshake; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 260,000 - 360,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in fast-growing company

401(k) match

Financial coaching

Parental leave

Fertility benefits

Medical, dental, vision

Mental health support

Learning stipend

Ongoing development

Remote & Office: SF office perks

Flexible PTO

Holidays + flex days

Team outings

Referral bonuses

Job summary

Handshake is hiring an AI Product Counsel at the Director or Senior Director level in San Francisco. You will lead legal support for Handshake AI products and platforms, partnering with product, research, engineering, operations and GTM teams from design through launch to customers.

You will advise on complex AI data questions, privacy and IP law, and scale a fast-growing product counseling program while collaborating with commercial counsel on novel agreements and global contractor governance.

Qualifications

• JD and membership in at least one U.S. state bar.
• 8+ years of legal experience, with significant in-house experience supporting product, platform, or emerging technology teams.
• Deep familiarity with privacy and intellectual property law, and with the laws governing AI and platform products.
• Track record of leading and scaling product counseling and legal review programs in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Experience working alongside commercial counsel on complex, novel commercial relationships.
• Strong technical fluency and curiosity; you enjoy partnering with engineers, researchers and product managers to understand how things work.
• Sound judgment under ambiguity: you can make a risk call where there is no precedent or playbook, explain it plainly and stand behind it.
• Exceptional communication skills and business judgment, balancing legal risk with strategic goals.
• Passion for Handshake’s mission to democratize access to opportunity and a deep interest in AI.

Responsibilities

• Embed with Handshake AI product, research, engineering, operations and go-to-market teams as their day-to-day legal partner, from early product design through launch and delivery to customers.
• Advise on the novel legal questions raised by new AI training and eval data products and modalities, including RL environments, personal and business data, and data in regulated domains such as health and finance.
• Support our work with frontier labs and enterprise customers. Partner with commercial counsel to structure novel deals and build scalable commercial programs on top of our products and platforms.
• Advise on the Handshake AI platform contractor experience end to end: terms, onboarding, identity and credential verification, quality controls, monitoring, and payouts across a global network.
• Build scalable product counseling and AI governance: AI-assisted intake and review workflows, playbooks, templates, data provenance and risk documentation, and self-serve guidance that let teams ship fast with confidence.

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

We’re hiring AI Product Counsel at the Director or Senior Director level, depending on experience and scope. You’ll lead legal work across Handshake to build and ship AI products and platforms, from human data infrastructure for frontier AI labs to our enterprise offerings and career network. Handshake operates at the frontier of the AI industry and you will help solve novel legal and business challenges at the intersection of AI model training, evaluation and deployment, intellectual property and data, and the evolution of work in the AI economy. You’ll join a lean, high-leverage Legal team and report to the General Counsel. The team values practical judgment, intellectual curiosity and a bias for action.

• Embed with Handshake AI product, research, engineering, operations and go-to-market teams as their day-to-day legal partner, from early product design through launch and delivery to customers.

• Advise on the novel legal questions raised by new AI training and eval data products and modalities, including RL environments, personal and business data, and data in regulated domains such as health and finance.

• Support our work with frontier labs and enterprise customers. Partner with commercial counsel to structure novel deals and build scalable commercial programs on top of our products and platforms.

• Advise on the Handshake AI platform contractor experience end to end: terms, onboarding, identity and credential verification, quality controls, monitoring, and payouts across a global network.

• Build scalable product counseling and AI governance: AI-assisted intake and review workflows, playbooks, templates, data provenance and risk documentation, and self-serve guidance that let teams ship fast with confidence.

You Have

• JD and membership in at least one U.S. state bar.

• 8+ years of legal experience, with significant in-house experience supporting product, platform, or emerging technology teams.

• Deep familiarity with privacy and intellectual property law, and with the laws governing AI and platform products.

• Track record of leading and scaling product counseling and legal review programs in fast-paced, high-growth environments.

• Experience working alongside commercial counsel on complex, novel commercial relationships.

• Strong technical fluency and curiosity; you enjoy partnering with engineers, researchers and product managers to understand how things work.

• Sound judgment under ambiguity: you can make a risk call where there is no precedent or playbook, explain it plainly and stand behind it.

• Exceptional communication skills and business judgment, balancing legal risk with strategic goals.

• Passion for Handshake’s mission to democratize access to opportunity and a deep interest in AI.

Bonus Points

• Prior experience supporting AI, ML, or data products, or working with AI labs or other frontier AI companies

• Experience with data licensing and data provenance issues

• Experience with regulated data, such as health or biometric data

• Familiarity with AI risk management frameworks, bias audit practices, or AI safety and transparency issues

• Experience working in marketplace or gig platforms

We Offer

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.