Senior Engineering Manager, Reinforcement Learning Environments (RLE)

Edtech.com's Summary

Handshake is hiring a Senior Engineering Manager for their Reinforcement Learning Environments (RLE) team. The role involves leading a team to build interactive simulation platforms that enable frontier AI models to learn real-world tasks across domains like software engineering, finance, and legal research, delivering high-quality data for model training and evaluation.

Highlights

Lead and expand a team of ~7 engineers developing reinforcement learning environments and supporting platforms.
Own roadmap and execution for scalable, reliable systems and data pipelines in collaboration with Research, Product, and Operations teams.
Design modular environments that integrate with model training and evaluation workflows.
Elevate reliability, observability, performance, and data quality standards.
Requirements include 3+ years managing engineering teams and 5+ years of hands-on engineering experience.
Strong leadership skills with experience managing senior engineers; managing another manager is a plus.
Expertise in distributed systems and platform development with a product-focused mindset.
Preferred experience with reinforcement learning infrastructure, simulation systems, annotation or QA pipelines, AWS/GCP, Docker, and modern tech stacks like TypeScript/Node and React.
Compensation includes equity, 401(k) match, paid parental leave, health benefits, learning stipends, and flexible PTO.
Customer base includes frontier AI labs, Fortune 500 companies, and top educational institutions driving AI advancement.

Senior Engineering Manager, Reinforcement Learning Environments (RLE) Full Description

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 1,600 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. Weâve 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 worldâs 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

Weâre hiring a Senior Engineering Manager to lead our Reinforcement Learning Environments (RLE) team - the group building the interactive sandboxes where frontier models learn to complete real work.

RLE environments simulate end-to-end workflows across domains like software engineering, finance, and legal research, with realistic tools, constraints, and feedback loops. The platform generates high-signal interaction data researchers use to train and evaluate models for task completion, quality, and robustness.

This is a high-leverage role: the systems you lead directly shape what models can learn, how quickly new domains can launch, and how much researchers trust the signal. Youâll lead a team of ~7 engineers today and are expected to add leadership capacity (including managing an EM) as we scale.

Location: San Francisco, CA. This is an in-office role, 5 days/week (no remote/hybrid)

What Youâll Do

Lead, hire, and develop a high-performing team building RL environments and the platform behind them
Own the RLE roadmap and execution in close partnership with Research, Product, and Operations
Drive architecture for scalable, reliable, extensible environment systems and data generation pipelines
Build modular, plug-and-play domains that integrate cleanly with training and evaluation loops
Raise the bar on reliability, observability, performance, and data quality
Create a culture of ownership, speed, and strong engineering fundamentals in an ambiguity heavy setting

What Weâre Looking For

Engineering leader + builder: 3+ years managing teams, plus 5+ years hands-on engineering experience
Strong people leadership: experience leading senior engineers; managing an EM (or equivalent scope) is a plus
Execution in ambiguity: proven ability to align cross-functionally and deliver in fast-moving, unclear problem spaces
Systems + product mindset: strong platform/distributed systems background, and the ability to turn research/ops needs into a clear roadmap, ship iteratively, and measure outcomes

Nice to Have

Experience with RL training infrastructure, simulation systems, or evaluation platforms
Human-in-the-loop systems (annotation, rubric tooling, QA pipelines, workflow platforms)
Operations-heavy, tech-enabled environment experience
Familiarity with AWS/GCP, APIs, Docker, and modern stacks (TypeScript/Node, React)
Experience building systems used by applied ML or AI research teams

What Success Looks Like

RLE becomes the default platform researchers use to train workflow-capable models
New domains launch quickly and reliably with trusted quality gates
Environment reliability + data quality are trusted inputs into training and evaluation decisions
The team scales with strong leaders who can independently drive new verticals
The platform measurably improves real-world task completion, robustness, and quality

Perks

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supportedâand thrive at work and in life.

The below benefits are for full-time US employees.

ð¯ Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company

ð° Financial Wellness: 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching

ð¼ Family Support: Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching

ð Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, $500 wellness stipend

ð Growth: $2,000 learning stipend, ongoing development

ð» Remote & Office: Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office

ð Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days

ð¤ Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses

Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.

Original Job Description