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.
Your impact
Handshake is hiring a Director of Engineering for our Developer Platform team. In this role, you will oversee multiple teams building common Handshake services and tools that power the development of the core features for our students, employers, and EDU partners. You will be responsible for helping the engineering organization achieve better productivity, velocity, and efficiency through the creation of tools, reusable services, design systems, and APIs that can help us continue improving the quality of our codebase and systems so we can continue democratizing, even more, the opportunity for early talent.
You will have opportunities to:
- Work on many complex technical backend, frontend, and mobile challenges ultimately working toward our vision of democratizing opportunity for students.
- Grow and scale a rapidly growing diverse team by hiring top talent.
- Build a fast-growing team by defining its culture, processes, and operating model, while heavily influencing the broader Engineering environment and overall Handshake architecture.
- Participate and drive business strategy and planning for your entire organization
- Help shape the future of the Handshake R&D organization
Your role
- Leading, coaching, and inspiring your engineering leaders and their teams of engineers.
- Manage a 22+ person engineering team and rapidly grow the organization at least twofold in the coming year.
- Guiding the technical direction of Handshake’s architecture for our existing products, and new products we are developing.
- Advocate for architectural enhancements and refactoring initiatives that will ensure the continued scale and growth of Handshake’s products.
- Partner closely with key Product, Design, and Engineering leaders across Handshake to enable the success of Handshake’s product development teams.
- Represent the Developer Platform Engineering team’s needs at the Engineering leadership level while helping to role out processes and programs across all of Engineering as we scale.
- Fostering team growth by ensuring the right processes are in place, facilitating efficient communication, and hiring the right talent to fill in the gaps.
- Collaborating across the organization by proactively providing visibility into your teams' work, including celebrating successes, learning from failures, and managing expectations.
- Leading with empathy as you help us nurture a culture of growth, inclusion, and belonging
- Help guide the engineering organization to achieve business outcomes
- Ability to demonstrate and track progress on business outcomes with effective definition and execution of a roadmap for all the teams in your organization
Your experience
- Experience managing other managers.
- Proven track record of being able to lead multi-team Engineering organizations by leading through and influencing the leaders that report to you.
- Understanding of how to build impactful, diverse teams.
- Background in software engineering and experience leading teams at the platform service layer.
- Ability to understand the team’s overall technical challenges and architecture while quickly being able to understand technical details when diving deeper into problems.
- Ability to effectively gather requirements from Product and Engineering teams to inform roadmaps, while keeping internal stakeholders informed of changes and updates being made at the platform services layer.
- Excellent people management skills, focusing on supporting empowerment.
- Ability to provide strategic product direction to the Platform Services team while evolving the organization as it rapidly grows.
- Passion for helping teams and individuals grow, and for building an inclusive culture and diverse team.
Compensation range
- $260,000 - $290,000/year
Want to learn more about what it's like to work at Handshake? Check out these interviews from our team members!
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. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, London, and Berlin.
What we offer
At Handshake, we'll give you the tools to feel healthy, happy and secure.
Benefits below apply to employees in full-time positions.
- 💰 Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company.
- 🍼 16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents.
- 💝 Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage. We also provide resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support.
- 💻 Handshake offers $500/£360 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months to create a productive and comfortable workspace at home.
- 📚 Generous learning & development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500/€1,850 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
- 💰 Financial coaching through Origin to help you through your financial journey.
- 🛜 Monthly internet stipend and a brand new MacBook to allow you to do your best work.
- 🚃 Monthly commuter stipend for you to expense your travel to the office (for office-based employees).
- 🥗 Free lunch provided twice a week across all offices.
- 🤝 Referral bonus to reward you when you bring great talent to Handshake.
(US-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)
- 🏦 401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
- 🏝 All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. In addition, we offer 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off. Lastly, we have a Winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off.
- 🍼 Family support: We partner with Milk Stork to provide comprehensive 100% employer-sponsored lactation support to traveling parents and guardians. Parental leave coaching and support provided by Parentaly.
(UK-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)
- 🏦 Pension Scheme: Handshake will provide you with a workplace pension, where you will make contributions based on 5% of your salary. Handshake will pay the equivalent of 3% towards your pension plan, subject to qualifying earnings limits.
- 🏝 Up to 25 days of vacation to encourage people to reset, recharge, and refresh, in addition to 8 bank holidays throughout the year.
- 🤝 Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco.
- 🛍️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake UK employees.
(Germany-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)
- 🏝 25 days of annual leave + 5 days of a winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off across the company.
- 🤝 Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco once a year.
- 🧘 Urban sports club membership offering access to a diverse network of fitness and wellness facilities.
- 🛍️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake Germany employees.
Looking for more? Explore our mission, values and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.
Handshake is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at [email protected].
What We Do
Handshake is the #1 place to launch a career with no connections, experience, or luck required. The platform connects up-and-coming talent with 650,000+ employers - from Fortune 500 companies like Google, Nike, and Target to thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, and nonprofits. Earlier this year, we announced our $200M Series F funding round. This Series F fundraise and new valuation of $3.5B will fuel Handshake’s next phase of growth and propel our mission to help more people start, restart, and jumpstart their careers.
Why Work With Us
How someone builds their career is foundational. We believe in working with the higher education community to help students build meaningful careers. We are at the nexus of universities, students and employers— and we’re able to connect the very best pieces of each side. We’re proud to create a community where students can be more successful.
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