Forward Deployed Engineer, Handshake AI Enterprise

Handshake; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 225,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in a fast-growing company

401(k) match

Paid parental leave

Medical, dental, and vision

Flexible PTO

Job summary

Handshake is seeking a Senior Forward Deployed Engineer to embed within enterprise customer environments and build AI-driven solutions. The ideal candidate should possess 5–6+ years of engineering experience with a strong backend depth, and real-world applications in AI. Responsibilities include defining solutions, building production-grade agents, and collaborating with product engineers. This in-office role in San Francisco offers a salary range of $225K - $325K and various benefits including equity, wellness support, and flexible PTO.

Qualifications

• 5–6+ years of engineering experience, full-stack with strong backend depth.
• Real-world experience building and shipping AI applications in production.
• Strong understanding of agent architectures, evals, and how to measure and systematically improve AI performance.

Responsibilities

• Embed directly with enterprise customers to understand their business workflows.
• Define AI-driven solutions based on real business needs.
• Build and deploy production-grade agents tailored to customer use cases.
• Design and run evals to measure and improve agent performance.

Skills

Engineering experience

AI applications experience

Systems thinking

Strong communication skills

Ownership mentality

Job description

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 an impact that 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 Forward Deployed Engineer at Handshake AI Enterprise, you’ll embed directly inside enterprise customer environments as part of a small, expert team. You’ll learn each customer’s business deeply — their workflows, bottlenecks, and where the real leverage is — and translate that understanding into production‑grade AI agents that measurably change how they operate. This isn’t an implementation or consulting role. You’ll own the full stack: defining the solution, building and deploying agents, designing evals, and iterating until performance actually moves. Over time, you’ll become a genuine domain expert in your customer’s vertical and use that expertise to build AI that keeps getting better.

Responsibilities

• Embed directly with enterprise customers as part of a small deployment team, developing deep understanding of their business and workflows
• Define AI‑driven solutions based on real business needs — not theoretical use cases
• Build and deploy production‑grade agents tailored to specific customer use cases, owning end‑to‑end delivery
• Design and run evals to measure agent performance; iterate and hill‑climb until results move
• Become a domain expert in your customer’s vertical and use that expertise to build better AI over time
• Work closely with Product and Platform engineers on your team to ship cohesive, reliable solutions
• Establish engineering best practices, agent patterns, and reusable frameworks that help the forward‑deployed team scale output without sacrificing quality
• Surface insights from deployments that inform Handshake’s platform and product roadmap

Desired Capabilities

• 5–6+ years of engineering experience, full‑stack with strong backend depth
• Real‑world experience building and shipping AI applications in production — not just fine‑tuning or prototyping
• Strong understanding of agent architectures, evals, and how to measure and systematically improve AI performance
• Comfort working directly with enterprise customers in ambiguous, high‑stakes environments
• Strong systems thinking — you can zoom out to the business problem and zoom in to the technical solution without losing either thread
• High ownership mentality — you care about outcomes, not just outputs
• Strong communication skills — you’ll be in the room with senior stakeholders regularly and need to earn their trust quickly

Extra Credit

• Background at a company with a forward deployment or field engineering model
• Experience building multi‑agent systems in production
• Domain expertise in a specific enterprise vertical (recruiting, finance, ops, legal, etc.)
• Familiarity with enterprise security requirements, VPC deployments, or on‑prem configurations
• History of building evals infrastructure or AI quality measurement tooling

Perks

• 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

Location: San Francisco, CA | 5 days/week in-office

Compensation Range: $225K - $325K