Engineering Manager

Who you are

• 3+ years experience managing engineering teams, including teams that include senior and staff engineers
• Strong people management: high EQ, empathy, and a record of growing engineers’ careers
• Deep technical background. You can contribute to architecture and evaluate trade-offs on a new system, even if you no longer code day to day
• A track record of delivering large, cross-functional projects on aggressive timelines, with good judgment about what to cut
• Zero-to-one experience: building a new product or major surface from scratch, ideally at a startup, a mid-size company, or a product-led team inside a larger one
• Experience with AI/LLM-powered products, agents, or evaluation systems
• Experience with self-serve or product-led growth products (free-to-paid, usage-based limits) is a plus What the job involves
• We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a high-impact engineering team within Handshake Careers. You’ll own the engineering of a new, agent-first product for industry recruiting: the future of how companies find, evaluate, and reach experienced talent
• Recruiting teams work through hours of manual searching, filtering, and outreach. Our product replaces that with an agent. A recruiter describes who they need, or uploads a job description, and the agent builds an ideal candidate profile, finds matches, refines results from feedback, and drafts and sends personalized outreach
• You’ll lead the founding team, a mix of senior, staff, principal, and mid-level engineers. The product is self-serve from day one, starting free and growing into paid and enterprise tiers
• Lead and grow a new engineering team, including senior, staff, and principal engineers, through hiring, coaching, and career development
• Own the end-to-end product: sign-up and onboarding, agent-driven search and calibration, shortlists, analytics, and tiering
• Shape the architecture early. Review technical designs and proposals and set direction
• Drive execution on an ambitious timeline across a large project, and make clear trade-offs with product and design on scope versus speed
• Partner closely with product and design, and with the teams behind outreach, candidate data, and AI/ML search and retrieval
• Establish the team’s engineering culture, processes, and operating rhythm from the ground up Benefits
• Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical , dental, and vision coverage
• Fertility and family forming: Through a partnership, Handshake offers comprehensive family benefits, including infertility treatments and a $15K stipend, to its employees.
• LGTBQ+ coverage: All medical plans cover transgender services.
• Mental health: Discounts on a variety of wellness apps and an Employee Assistance Program with access to five free counseling sessions.
• Tax savings: Tax-advantaged benefits to save money on healthcare, dependent care, and other expenses.
• Life & disability insurance: Essential benefits and automatic coverage with basic life insurance, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage.
• 401k match: Dollar-for-dollar match up to 1% of pay, with a max of $1,200 per year.
• Equity: Our equity program includes grants at hire, refresher grants after two years of tenure, and grants alongside promotions.
• Financial management: Handshake partners to provide free professional financial planning services.
• Learning & development: Employees are provided with an annual stipend to use towards professional development, career development workshops, manager trainings, and 1-on-1 coaching through external partnerships
• Community leader support: Employee Resource Group leaders are compensated with a quarterly bonus for the high-impact work the role requires
• Parental leave: Leaves of 16 weeks for birth-giving parents and 10 weeks for non-birth-giving parents; the policy applies to adoptions as well. Handshake also partners to provide one-on-one coaching on preparing for leave and coming back from leave
• Flexible time off: No accrued time off or waiting period to take vacation. Two paid flexible holiday days off to observe holidays that closely align with religious, cultural, and personal needs
• Sabbatical: Paid six-week sabbatical to recharge and reset beginning at six years of continuous, full-time employment, and every four years thereafter
• Volunteer time off: Two days off for social and civil activism, volunteer work, and/or any related activities, including attending and participating in protests