Senior Manager, Handshake AI Support (Onboarding)

About Handshake AI

Handshake is building the career network for the AI economy. Our three-sided marketplace connects 18 million students and alumni, 1,500+ academic institutions across the U.S. and Europe, and 1 million employers to power how the next generation explores careers, builds skills, and gets hired.

Handshake AI is a human data labeling business that leverages the scale of the largest early career network. We work directly with the world’s leading AI research labs to build a new generation of human data products. From PhDs in physics to undergrads fluent in LLMs, Handshake AI is the trusted partner for domain-specific data and evaluation at scale.

This is a unique opportunity to join a fast-growing team shaping the future of AI through better data, better tools, and better systems—for experts, by experts.

Now’s a great time to join Handshake. Here’s why:

• Leading the AI Career Revolution: Be part of the team redefining work in the AI economy for millions worldwide.

• Proven Market Demand: Deep employer partnerships across Fortune 500s and the world’s leading AI research labs.

• World-Class Team: Leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, just to name a few.

• Capitalized & Scaling: $3.5B valuation from top investors including Kleiner Perkins, True Ventures, Notable Capital, and more.

About the Role

Handshake is expanding into AI research and development, building a world-class network of expert Fellows - PhDs, researchers, and subject matter specialists - who contribute to cutting-edge AI through specialized research, model evaluation, and domain-specific applications. We’re looking for a Handshake AI Senior Support Manager to build a new distributed support team of contract, outsourced, and full-time staff, and partner cross-functionally across the Handshake AI and Global Support teams to scale a world-class Fellow support experience. You’ll work to manage Handshake AI Support volume and maintain low response times, identify ways to reduce volume and bottlenecks through product, tooling, and self service enhancements, and contribute to a seamless Fellow experience. Not only will you drive the development of our Handshake AI Support Team, who enables and supports our complex and technical platform, but you’ll contribute to the evolution of the Global Support and Handshake AI departments!

This is a unique opportunity to play a pivotal role at a hypergrowth startup in a fast-growing space with building playbooks, documentation, enablement and infrastructure all from scratch. If you thrive on frequent change, navigating ambiguity, and chasing ambitious goals this is the role for you!

• Design an exceptional onboarding process for our Handshake AI fellows that builds trust and provides them the support needed to become great fellows

• Hire, train, and develop a high-performing, engaged, fun, and inclusive support team comprised of FTE, contract, and outsourced (BPO) staff to deliver an exceptional Fellow support experience

• Monitor queues, team performance, and daily operations to meet SLAs and coach or intervene (including rallying the team and hopping in the queue!) as needed

• Pull and analyze data and trends to share insights with relevant stakeholders, and translate findings into solutions via better help content, AI chatbot flows, tools, internal documentation, enablement, and SOPs

• Assess team efficiency, utilization, and quality and help inform forecasts and staffing models as this new venture rapidly grows

• Collaborate with Support and Handshake AI leaders and stakeholders to coordinate resources, enhance processes, and develop solutions to improve and scale the Fellow experience

• Help inform and build Global Support and Handshake AI vision, strategy, and long-term planning or operations

• Attend and help facilitate our annual Global Support onsite in SF, typically during June or July, and attend other Handshake AI onsites or events

• Travel to SF HQ quarterly

Desired Capabilities

• 5+ years of support people management experience

• 2+ year of technical support frontline experience

• Strong knowledge of support and business intelligence tools such as Zendesk, Playvox, Linear, and/or Looker

• Prior experience working on customer onboarding for a large B2C organization

• Strong analytical and problem solving skills, with experience tackling operational and scaling challenges

• Strong project management and use of