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Handshake Logo Handshake · IT - Software Development

Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

United States, San Francisco 235000.00 - 275000.00 USD / Year · Job Posted February 20, 2026
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Job Description

As a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll define and drive the technical strategy for how Handshake delivers engineered solutions to our most strategic customers, including leading AI labs. You'll operate as a trusted technical partner to both customers and internal leadership—owning the vision for how forward-deployed engineering scales as a function, while remaining deeply hands-on in solving our hardest deployment challenges. Your work will directly shape product direction, influence platform architecture, and set the technical bar for the entire forward-deployed engineering team. This is a unique opportunity to pair organization-wide technical influence with direct customer impact—establishing the playbook for how Handshake's most critical partnerships are built, delivered, and scaled.

Job Responsibility

  • Define the technical strategy and architectural vision for forward-deployed engineering, ensuring solutions are scalable, repeatable, and aligned with Handshake's platform roadmap
  • Serve as the senior technical point of contact for our most complex and highest-value customer engagements, including leading AI labs, translating strategic business needs into engineering direction
  • Drive cross-functional alignment between forward-deployed engineering, product, platform, and customer-facing teams to ensure deployed solutions inform and improve the core product
  • Architect and deliver production-grade systems for novel, high-ambiguity customer challenges—setting the standard for quality, reliability, and performance
  • Establish engineering best practices, design patterns, and reusable frameworks that enable the forward-deployed team to scale output without sacrificing quality
  • Mentor and develop senior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and customer empathy across the team
  • Identify systemic gaps in tooling, infrastructure, or process and lead initiatives to address them, reducing friction for future deployments

Requirements

  • 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant time in customer-facing, solutions-oriented, or forward-deployed roles at high-growth companies
  • Proven ability to set technical direction and drive architectural decisions that span multiple teams or systems
  • Expert-level proficiency with ReactJS and TypeScript, with deep knowledge of frontend performance, component architecture, and design systems
  • Strong command of relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL), data modeling, system design, and distributed systems principles
  • Extensive experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP), CI/CD pipelines, and operating production systems at scale
  • Track record of leading ambiguous, high-stakes technical initiatives from zero-to-one with minimal direction
  • Exceptional communication skills with the ability to influence senior leadership, external partners, and cross-functional teams
  • Demonstrated impact in mentoring engineers, shaping team culture, and elevating engineering standards across an organization

Nice to have

  • Experience defining the technical strategy for LLM-powered or AI-native products deployed in production, customer-facing environments
  • Background in building and scaling forward-deployed, solutions engineering, or professional services engineering functions from the ground up
  • History of contributing to or driving platform/infrastructure decisions that improved developer velocity or deployment reliability across teams
  • Experience partnering directly with C-level or VP-level stakeholders at customer organizations to scope and deliver technical solutions

What we offer

  • Equity in a fast-growing company
  • 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching
  • Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching
  • Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, $500 wellness stipend
  • $2,000 learning stipend, ongoing development
  • Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office
  • Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days
  • Team outings & referral bonuses
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