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.

Want to learn more about what it's like to work at Handshake? Check out these interviews from our team members!

Your impact

Handshake is hiring a Senior Machine Learning Engineer for the Growth Relevance team. AI is transforming how students navigate their careers, and we're committed to providing innovative, responsible AI-powered solutions that guide students from educational aspirations to meaningful career opportunities. In this role, you will contribute directly to this mission by developing, deploying, and enhancing machine learning systems focused on lifecycle optimization, personalized notifications, and monetization strategies.

You'll join a high-impact team leveraging cutting-edge ML infrastructure, including embedding-based retrieval, Graph Neural Networks, and multi-stage rankers built upon a robust data platform with billions of data points. Your work will drive critical marketplace metrics, enhance user engagement, and contribute to responsible AI practices around explainability, fairness, and quality.

Your role

• Technical Leader: You'll drive technical solutions, elevate engineering practices, collaborate across teams, and mentor colleagues to deliver impactful ML-driven products.
• Innovator: Develop and optimize machine learning models and systems that directly influence user experience across lifecycle, notifications, and monetization.
• Collaborator: Partner closely with product managers, data scientists, and engineers to design, execute, and iterate on ML-driven user experiences and experiments, providing key insights to inform strategic product decisions.

You’ll work with these technologies

• For technical roles only

Your experience

• You are a hands-on ML engineer with a proven track record in identifying complex problems, crafting thoughtful technical solutions, and executing projects from conception to deployment. You balance technical expertise with strong collaboration skills, possess a relentless focus on user outcomes, and thrive in ambiguity, making informed, data-driven decisions.
• 3+ years of industry experience building and deploying production ML systems.

Bonus areas of expertise

• Hands-on experience developing, deploying, and optimizing web-scale ML systems.
• Experience with ML lifecycle management, personalization systems, notification optimization, and/or monetization-driven algorithms.
• Background in one or more ML areas: recommendations, personalization, NLP, deep learning, LLM integration, or explainable AI.
• Familiarity building scalable ML applications using cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, Azure).

Compensation range

$200,000-$250,000

For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including geographic location as well as candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

About us

Handshake is the career platform for Gen Z. With a community of over 17 million students, alumni, employers, and career educators, Handshake’s network is where career advice and discovery turn into first, second, and third jobs. Nearly 1 million companies use Handshake to build their future workforce—from Fortune 500 to federal agencies, school districts to startups, healthcare systems to small businesses. Handshake is built for where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

When it comes to our workforce strategy, we’ve thought deeply about how work-life should look at Handshake. With our hybrid-work model, employees benefit from collaboration and shared team experiences three days per week in our vibrant offices, and enjoy the flexibility of remote work two days per week (unless noted in the specific job posting). Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, London, and Berlin.

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