Senior Software Engineer, Backend Platform

About Us

Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 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 world’s 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

The Role

Join our Backend Platform team as a Senior Software Engineer, where you will be integral in owning and advancing the foundational systems that support every product team. This role offers the chance to engage with genuine platform-scale architecture challenges, tackling tasks such as optimizing Elasticsearch queries and redesigning CI pipelines. You will have a direct impact on how students connect with career opportunities through high-impact modernization work.

• Optimize backend systemslike Elasticsearch and CI pipelines to improve performance and reliability across our platform.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teamsto influence technical direction through effective communication and well-scoped proposals.
• Lead cross-team projectsand drive RFCs to align technical initiatives with organizational goals.
• Develop and maintaininternal developer tooling, libraries, and APIs to streamline engineering workflows and enhance productivity.
• Participate in modernization effortssuch as migration paths and system conversions to shape the evolution of our platform.

This position provides career growth opportunities through leadership in technical projects and collaboration across diverse teams.

You Have

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience, with expert-level proficiency in Ruby on Rails.
• Experience in building internal developer tooling and improving developer experience.
• Demonstrated technical leadership through project management, mentorship, or influencing technical direction.
• Strong collaboration skills with the ability to work across product and platform teams.
• Interest in leveraging AI technologies to enhance developer experience.

Bonus Points:

• Experience with AI-powered developer tools or AI integration in workflows.
• Background in developer experience infrastructure, such as devcontainers and CLI tooling.
• DevOps/Infrastructure expertise, ideally with GCP.
• Familiarity with Docker, service-oriented architecture, and backend languages like Go or TypeScript.

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 .