Senior Technical Recruiter

Handshake; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in AI data solutions is seeking a Senior Technical Recruiter to drive recruiting strategy and pipeline development for engineering and data roles. The ideal candidate will have a robust background in technical recruiting, a strong understanding of technical aspects, and exceptional communication skills. This is a critical role to scale a world-class technical team and enhance Handshake’s hiring efforts in the fast-paced AI landscape.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience for Engineering and Data roles.
• Adept at building relationships with technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Own full-cycle recruiting for Engineering and Data roles.
• Ensure exceptional candidate experiences regardless of outcome.
• Create outreach content tailored to technical audiences.

Skills

Communication

Technical Acumen

Sourcing Skills

Analytical Mindset

Tools

LinkedIn Recruiter

Ashby

Gem

Brighthire

Job description

Your Impact

Handshake is building the future of human data for AI.

We partner directly with leading AI labs to power LLM training and evaluation through expert-labeled, high-quality datasets. As model capabilities advance, the need for specialized technical and domain expertise has never been greater—and Handshake is uniquely positioned to meet this demand. Through our university partnerships and platform, we have direct access to millions of technical experts, researchers, and early-career engineers.

Our AI team is developing next-generation data and infrastructure products—from technical assessment platforms and annotation workflows to model evaluation pipelines and payment systems. To scale these systems, we’re hiring top-tier engineering and data talent, and we need a recruiter who knows how to find and close them.

We’re hiring a Senior Technical Recruiter to lead hiring for Engineering and Data roles across Handshake AI. Reporting to the Sr. Director of Talent Acquisition, you'll work closely with engineering leadership and cross-functional partners to scale a world-class technical team.

This is a high-impact role with ownership over technical recruiting strategy, pipeline development, and end-to-end execution—focused on hiring the builders powering the future of human data.

Your Role

• Strategic Hiring Partner: Collaborate with engineering and data leaders to shape org design, define role requirements, and prioritize hiring plans aligned to technical roadmap goals.

• Technical Pipeline Ownership: Manage full-cycle recruiting for software engineering, infrastructure, machine learning, data science, and data engineering roles—from outbound sourcing through close.

• Proactive Sourcing & Market Mapping: Build diverse, high-caliber technical pipelines using outbound sourcing, referrals, events, and strategic research. Identify niche talent in AI, infrastructure, distributed systems, data platforms, and beyond.

• Candidate Assessment Strategy: Drive clarity around evaluation rubrics, technical screen processes, and hiring bar calibration across interview teams. Partner with engineering leaders to ensure consistency and rigor.

• Data-Driven Recruiting: Own and report on funnel metrics including conversion rates, pipeline velocity, passthrough health, and candidate experience feedback. Use data to recommend improvements.

• Employer Brand for Technical Talent: Create compelling outreach and candidate-facing content tailored to technical audiences. Represent Handshake at AI and engineering events, meetups, and conferences.

• Exceptional Candidate Experience: Ensure every candidate—regardless of outcome—has a respectful, transparent, and engaging experience reflective of our engineering culture.
  

Your Experience

• Full-Cycle Technical Recruiting: 5+ years of full-cycle recruiting experience, with a track record of hiring for high-impact Engineering and Data roles in early to growth-stage technology companies.

• Deep Technical Acumen: Comfortable understanding technical stacks and matching talent to domain needs (e.g., backend infra, LLM systems, MLOps, data infrastructure, full stack development).

• Executive Collaboration: Adept at building trusted relationships with engineering leaders and technical stakeholders; able to advise on hiring decisions, priorities, and tradeoffs.

• Advanced Sourcing Skills: Proficient in sourcing via LinkedIn Recruiter, Boolean, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Noon.ai, and technical communities. Creative and persistent in outreach.

• ATS & Workflow Fluency: Skilled in using ATS systems (e.g., Ashby), structured interview processes, and tools like Gem, Brighthire, and scheduling automation to streamline operations.

• Analytical Mindset: Able to generate reports, track funnel data, and evaluate performance against key hiring metrics. Experience with recruiting dashboards a plus.

• Clear Communicator: Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to engage engineering candidates thoughtfully and convey Handshake’s technical vision.