Senior AI Annotations Engineer

Apply; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in a fast-growing company

401(k) match, competitive compensation

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Mental health support and a $500 welln

Parental leave, fertility benefits, &s

Job summary

Handshake is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Annotations team and build the systems that power high-quality human data for frontier AI companies. You’ll work at the intersection of product engineering, distributed systems, and AI data operations—designing tools that help operators manage annotation projects, improve task quality, and scale expert workflows.

This is a high-ownership role in a fast-moving environment.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of software engineering experience building and operating production systems.
• Strong product judgment and ability to connect technical decisions to customer outcomes.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work with technical and non-technical partners.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale operator tooling for annotation projects.
• Design workflows and quality-control systems to improve task accuracy and throughput.
• Develop full-stack features using Python, Node.js/TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL, and APIs.
• Set technical direction for complex projects balancing speed and reliability.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to define requirements and ship impactful solutions.
• Lead projects from concept to production delivery, including rollout and monitoring.
• Mentor engineers and raise code quality and architecture discussions.
• Improve engineering processes, testing, and observability across the squad.

Skills

6+ years experience

Excellent communication

Collaborative leadership

Mentor engineers

Product judgment

Tools

Python

Node.js

TypeScript

React

PostgreSQL

Backend APIs

Job description

Handshake is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Annotations team and build the systems that power high-quality human data for frontier AI companies. You’ll work at the intersection of product engineering, distributed systems, and AI data operations—designing tools that help operators manage annotation projects, improve task quality, and scale expert workflows.

This is a high-ownership role in a fast-moving environment.