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 1600 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. Weve 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 worlds 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

The Strategy & Operations Manager for R&D will extend Handshakes S&O function into the frontier of AI development. Primarily deployed in Handshake AI (HAI) this person works at the intersection of the most consequential and fast-moving work in the company: scalable reinforcement learning environments systematic quality frameworks for training frontier models and large-scale coding projects pushing the boundaries of what AI can do on a massive real-world problem set.

This is not a program management role and its not a permanent execution owner. Its a force multiplier: someone who deploys to wherever the business problem is most urgent builds the operating system to make it self-sustaining and moves on. They work alongside the R&D S&O leader to extend strategic reach across two business units with different operational needs and up level how teams across R&D operate with AI in their toolkit.

Your Role

• Deploy to the highest-priority initiatives across R&D build the operating structure for each sprint and hand off when its self-sustaining

• Build trusted relationships with engineering and product leads; be informed enough to push back and credible enough to be heard

• Identify process and tooling friction across R&D and own the playbooks to fix it including agentification of manual workflows

• Run org-wide operating rhythms including quarterly planning execution rhythms org comms and cross-team reporting

• Escalate to the S&O lead with context and a point of view and a plan

Desired Capabilities

• 68 years 6 to 8 years in strategy & operations chief of staff or a hybrid role in a fast-moving R&D driven environment

• Proven track record deploying across complex multi-team organizations and building operating systems that outlast their involvement

• Strategic range to move fluidly between a technical AI research environment and a consumer marketplace without losing effectiveness

• High judgment under ambiguity: goes to where the problem is not where the job description points

• Executive presence to operate alongside senior leaders and push back when something is at risk

• AI-fluent operator who uses the latest tools and is excited to build the agentification playbook for others

• Relationship-builder who earns trust quickly across engineering product and design stakeholders

Perks

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supportedand 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 wellness stipend
Growth: 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 Experience:

Manager