Handshake
Senior Engagement Manager
🇺🇸
San Francisco, CA
🕑
Full-Time
💰
TBD
💻
Other
🗓️
July 15th, 2026
Edtech.com's Summary
Handshake is hiring a Senior Engagement Manager to lead full end-to-end relationships for its largest frontier AI lab customers, managing accounts with $100M+ run rates. The role involves translating complex client objectives into actionable priorities, making high-impact decisions, and collaborating across sales, product, and engineering teams to deliver value and growth.
Highlights
- Own and manage high-value frontier AI lab accounts with run rates exceeding $100M
- Translate evolving and ambiguous client goals into clear priorities in partnership with Strategic Project Leads and Operations
- Make fast, strategic tradeoffs balancing speed, quality, and cost to protect relationships and outcomes
- Collaborate with Sales to identify and close expansion opportunities, increasing account value
- Define and monitor success metrics such as KPIs, SLAs, and model quality to align clients and leadership
- Requires 8+ years in high-ownership, customer-facing, or leadership roles, ideally with AI or data exposure
- Experience from top-tier consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) or equivalent elite leadership or startup experience
- Proven ability to manage VP- and C-level stakeholders within complex organizations
- Strong decision-making skills with incomplete information and excellent communication to maintain trust
- Bonus skills include technical or STEM background, AI/data experience, and negotiation with technical buyers
Senior Engagement Manager Full Description
About Handshake
Handshake is the career network for the AI economy — powering career discovery, hiring, and upskilling for 25 million job seekers, 1,600 educational institutions, and 1 million+ employers, from first internships to full-time careers to the frontier of AI training. In 2025, we launched Handshake AI on that same network and trust, and grew it into the fastest-growing AI data business in history — from $0 to a ~$1B run rate, now paying ~$60M a month to over 30,000 experts. Frontier AI labs work directly with us on their hardest, highest-scale data problems, because our decade of relationships with the world's most qualified students and experts is a moat no one else has.
Why join now:
- Shape how career and AI intersect at global scale, with impact you can see and feel
- Partner hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 companies, and top institutions
- Work alongside operators from Palantir, Meta, Scale AI, and top YC companies
- Build a massive, fast-growing business inside a company already serving millions
The Role
As a Senior Engagement Manager on Handshake AI's Engagement Management team, you own full, end-to-end relationships for our largest frontier AI lab customers — accounts at $100M+ run rate — from first scope through expansion and renewal. You're the person these customers call first, acting as a thought partner rather than a traditional account manager, translating ambiguous, high-stakes problems into clear direction while Strategic Project Leads and Operations execute delivery. You'll sit at the intersection of customer, product, and engineering, making fast, high-judgment tradeoffs under pressure and protecting both the relationship and the quality bar.
- Own full end-to-end relationships across a portfolio of $100M+ frontier AI lab accounts, serving as the first call in high-stakes moments and the single throughline for value.
- Translate messy, evolving client goals into sharp requirements and priorities, partnering closely with Strategic Project Leads & Operations to turn strategy into delivery.
- Make fast, high-conviction tradeoffs on speed, quality, and cost — knowing when to commit, push back, or escalate to protect the relationship and the outcome.
- Partner with Sales to identify and help close expansion opportunities, growing account value and deepening Handshake AI's role in customers' model development.
- Define and report on success metrics (KPIs, SLAs, model quality) that keep leadership and clients aligned on what's working and what needs to change.
You Have
- 8+ years in high-ownership, customer-facing or high-stakes leadership roles — engagement management, management consulting, strategy & ops, elite military leadership, or founder/operating roles — ideally with exposure to AI, data, or complex operational products
- Meaningful time at a top-tier consulting firm (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or equivalent), or an equivalent mix of consulting, elite institutional leadership, and high-intensity startup or operating experience
- Currently in an external, customer-facing role, or have held one within the last two years
- Genuine, demonstrated curiosity about AI — excited to learn from frontier researchers and build deep technical fluency in the space, not just drawn to the opportunity
- A track record leading complex, multi-stakeholder engagements to measurable outcomes for demanding enterprise customers
- Experience working directly with VP- and C-level stakeholders, and navigating complex, political organizations while still getting to an answer fast
- Comfort making high-judgment decisions with incomplete information, and shifting fluidly between executive relationship management and detailed data review
- Strong instincts for when to push back on a client ask versus when to flex, with the communication skill to do either without damaging trust
- Genuine energy for high-intensity, fast-changing environments, including periods that call for significant time investment — this isn't a fixed-hours, narrow-scope role
Bonus points:
- Technical or STEM background (engineering, computer science, or related) alongside your customer-facing experience
- Prior experience in AI, data, or frontier model development
- Investment banking, private equity, or GM/BizOps background with strong analytical range
- Experience negotiating with sophisticated, technical buyers across multiple vendors
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: $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
Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.
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