Senior Software Engineer, Employer

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Employer team, you'll help build the next generation of hiring on Handshake. How can AI help employers discover talent they would otherwise miss? How can we turn hours of manual recruiting into intuitive, effective workflows? You'll tackle these kinds of problems with real ownership—taking initiatives from an early idea through architecture, launch, and the next iteration. The team's work spans AI-powered sourcing, automated outreach, and recruiting agents, alongside the monetization and growth experiences that help employers succeed on our platform. This job is 5 days a week onsite in our San Francisco, CA office.

Responsibilities

Own high-impact full-stack initiatives from idea to launch, shaping product direction and driving technical execution; Build smarter hiring experiences, with opportunities across AI-powered sourcing, automated outreach, and recruiting integrations; Run A/B tests and use customer feedback to improve employer engagement, conversion, and hiring outcomes; Develop monetization and growth experiences that help employers get more value from Handshake; Architect scalable, reliable systems and make pragmatic tradeoffs across frontend, backend, and integrations; Partner with product, design, and data to turn ambiguous customer needs into intuitive, effective products; Elevate engineering quality through thoughtful code reviews, mentorship, and ownership of production systems

Requirements

Proven experience owning complex products from idea through launch and iteration; Strong full-stack engineering skills, with proficiency in Ruby on Rails, Go, or Python; Experience designing scalable architectures and reliable distributed systems; Strong product judgment, connecting technical decisions to customer needs and business outcomes; Comfort with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and rapid experimentation; Pragmatic technical decision-making and a high bar for maintainable, production-quality code; Clear communication, collaborative leadership, and confidence to challenge assumptions and surface blockers; Comfort using AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor and Claude

Nice to have

Experience building AI-powered products, LLM applications, or recruiting agents; Background in product-led growth, A/B testing, and improving activation or conversion; Experience with Stripe integrations, payments, billing, or monetization; Experience building recruiting tools, SaaS integrations, or employer-facing products; Familiarity with promoted-content systems, attribution, or customer-facing analytics

Benefits

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