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VP of Product, Handshake AI

Handshake


Job Location:

San Francisco, CA - USA

Yearly Salary: USD 340000 - 380000
Posted: 29 September 2026 (2 days ago)
Application Deadline: 27 December 2026
Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

About Handshake

Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 25 million knowledge workers 1600 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 impact your friends family and peers can see and feel

  • Work hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs Fortune 500 partners and the worlds 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 Handshake AI

Handshake AI is the fastest-growing most critical and most revenue-generating part of Handshakes business. We power expert-labeled data collection at scale matching domain experts with leading AI companies to train frontier modelsand were already a top-three player in one of the fastest-growing sectors in AI: human data. We have the opportunity to do for the AI data economy what LinkedIn did for professional networking: become the default platform where the work happens.


About the Role

Were hiring a VP of Product to lead product for Handshake AI. This is not a head of role in name onlyyou will be the product leader for one of the fastest-growing AI startups in the country owning the strategy roadmap and execution that determines how fast and how well we scale.

Youll sit at the center of a business that is compounding quickly: new customers new data modalities a growing operator and fellow ecosystem and an increasingly complex set of platform needs. Your job is to turn that complexity into a coherent product organizationone with clear strategy strong PM talent and a roadmap that keeps pace with (and gets ahead of) the business.

Youll report into the CPO sit on the senior team and partner directly with Engineering Design Operations and Sales/Customer leadership to shape where Handshake AI goes next.


What Youll Own

Product Strategy & Vision. Set the product strategy for Handshake AI as a wholeacross data modalities the operator and fellow platforms and customer-facing surfaces. Translate become the career network and data engine for the AI economy into a concrete sequenced roadmap.

Team Leadership. Build lead and grow a product organization of PMs across modalities and platform pods (e.g. Operator Experience Fellow Experience modality-specific pods like Coding). Hire exceptional product talent set the bar for craft and rigor and develop the managers and ICs on your team.

Cross-Functional Partnership. Be the connective tissue between Engineering Design Operations and GTM. Ensure the product orgs priorities reflect both what customers need and what will scale the business fastest and that trade-offs across pods are made coherently rather than in silos.

Executive-Level Prioritization. Make and own the hard calls: which modalities to invest in which platform capabilities to build now vs. later and where to say no. Communicate strategy and trade-offs clearly to the exec team and the board.

Metrics & Accountability. Define what success looks like for the product orgrevenue enablement quality outcomes operator/fellow efficiency time-to-launch for new modalities and customersand hold the org accountable to it.

Customer & Market Fluency. Spend real time with AI labs enterprise customers and internal stakeholders to understand how the market is evolving. Use that fluency to keep Handshake AI ahead of where the human-data category is heading not just responsive to it.

Scaling the Platform. Ensure the underlying product and operational platform can flex to new customer types data types and volumesso growth in revenue doesnt require linear growth in headcount or one-off engineering.


Desired Capabilities
  • 12 years in product management including 4 years as a senior product leader managing other PMs and managers ideally at a high-growth startup.

  • Experience owning product for a business (or major business line) growing quickly with a demonstrated ability to build strategy and org structure that scale with revenue.

  • Strong operational intuitionyouve built or overseen platforms for internal users operations teams or complex two-sided marketplaces not just consumer-facing features.

  • Track record hiring and developing product talent including PMs who own ambiguous 01 problem spaces.

  • Systems thinker who can hold a multi-modality multi-stakeholder roadmap in their head and make coherent trade-offs across it.

  • Comfortable operating in high ambiguity: the market the customer needs and the product surface area are all still being defined.

  • Data-informed but action-orientedyou use metrics to prioritize but you move with conviction when the signal is directional rather than definitive.

  • Excellent executive communication; you can represent product strategy credibly to the C-suite the board and customers.

Bonus Points
  • Experience in human data annotation/labeling RLHF or AI training data ecosystems.

  • Experience building or scaling a marketplace or platform business (two-sided operator/worker-facing or similar).

  • Prior experience at a fast-growing AI lab data company or enterprise SaaS company through a period of hypergrowth.

  • Experience building career talent or workforce products.

We Offer

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported and 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 $500 wellness stipend

  • Growth: $2000 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:

Exec


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The better career platform for Gen Z changing how, where, and why the next generation of talent builds their career.

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