Edtech.com's Summary

Handshake is hiring a Senior Staff Engineer, Content and Community. This role involves architecting and scaling the professional graph to enhance user connection, discovery, and engagement. Responsibilities include driving the evolution of people search, profiles, and follow graphs, integrating AI for personalized recommendations, and collaborating across teams to enhance backend services and APIs.

Highlights

Design and implement scalable social graph systems.
Integrate machine learning and AI into user experiences.
Lead backend services and API scale.
8+ years of backend software engineering experience required.
Expertise with distributed systems and scalable APIs.
Compensation range: $250,000-$315,000.
Experience with graph-based products is a plus.

Senior Staff Engineer, Content and Community Full Description

Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.

Your impact

At Handshake, we believe in the power of community to unlock opportunity for every student and recent grad. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on our Content & Community team, you’ll architect and scale the backbone of our professional graph—powering how users connect, discover, and engage. Your work will directly shape the way millions of students and employers build networks, discover people and content, and find the right opportunities. You’ll drive the evolution of our people search, profile, and follow graph, and use cutting-edge AI to deliver personalized people recommendations and content feeds that make every connection meaningful.

Your role

Build the Social Graph: Design and implement scalable systems for our follow graph, enabling rich connections and powering people recommendations across Handshake.
Deliver Personalized Experiences: Integrate LLM/AI and machine learning into our profile, people search, and feed experiences—ensuring every user receives relevant recommendations and content.
Power the Feed: Own and evolve the backend for our social and content feeds, working cross-functionally with Staff Engineers and product teams to ensure the feed both reflects and shapes the user’s network and interests.
Cross-Cutting Influence: Collaborate across teams to understand how user activity (e.g., likes, follows, feed engagement) influences recommendations and feed ranking, and vice versa—closing the loop between network growth and content discovery.
Backend Leadership: Drive the design, implementation, and scaling of backend services and APIs that support people search, recommendations, and feed personalization at massive scale.

Your experience

8+ years of backend software engineering experience, ideally working on social, community, or graph-based products; full stack development experience is a strong plus.
Proven expertise with distributed systems, data modeling for social graphs, and building scalable APIs.
Experience with machine learning or personalization systems, especially in the context of recommendations or feeds.
Track record of collaborating with cross-functional partners (product, design, ML, and other engineering teams) to deliver impactful user-facing features.
Experience designing and building large-scale search, social graph, or entity tagging (ET) systems.

Bonus areas of expertise

Deep experience with people search, profile systems, or social graph infrastructure.
Familiarity with LLM/AI integration into user-facing features.
Experience designing or scaling recommendation engines or ranking systems.
Understanding of how user interactions (likes, follows, shares) influence feed and recommendation algorithms.
Prior experience in social, or high-scale consumer platforms.
Contributions to open-source graph or ML frameworks.

Compensation range

$250,000-$315,000

Original Job Description

Your impact

Your role

Build the Social Graph: Design and implement scalable systems for our follow graph, enabling rich connections and powering people recommendations across Handshake.
Deliver Personalized Experiences: Integrate LLM/AI and machine learning into our profile, people search, and feed experiences—ensuring every user receives relevant recommendations and content.
Power the Feed: Own and evolve the backend for our social and content feeds, working cross-functionally with Staff Engineers and product teams to ensure the feed both reflects and shapes the user’s network and interests.
Cross-Cutting Influence: Collaborate across teams to understand how user activity (e.g., likes, follows, feed engagement) influences recommendations and feed ranking, and vice versa—closing the loop between network growth and content discovery.
Backend Leadership: Drive the design, implementation, and scaling of backend services and APIs that support people search, recommendations, and feed personalization at massive scale.

Your experience

8+ years of backend software engineering experience, ideally working on social, community, or graph-based products; full stack development experience is a strong plus.
Proven expertise with distributed systems, data modeling for social graphs, and building scalable APIs.
Experience with machine learning or personalization systems, especially in the context of recommendations or feeds.
Track record of collaborating with cross-functional partners (product, design, ML, and other engineering teams) to deliver impactful user-facing features.
Experience designing and building large-scale search, social graph, or entity tagging (ET) systems.

Bonus areas of expertise

Deep experience with people search, profile systems, or social graph infrastructure.
Familiarity with LLM/AI integration into user-facing features.
Experience designing or scaling recommendation engines or ranking systems.
Understanding of how user interactions (likes, follows, shares) influence feed and recommendation algorithms.
Prior experience in social, or high-scale consumer platforms.
Contributions to open-source graph or ML frameworks.

Compensation range

$250,000-$315,000

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Senior Staff Engineer, Content and Community

Edtech.com's Summary

Senior Staff Engineer, Content and Community Full Description

Your impact

Your role

Your experience

Bonus areas of expertise

Compensation range

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