Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

About the Company

Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career. Handshake AI is the fastest-growing AI data business in history, working directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical strategy and delivery quality across all of FDE's highest-priority customer engagements.
• Stay close to the craft, contributing to architecture, design reviews, and production solutions.
• Lead and develop a team of 10+ FDEs, including Tech Lead Managers.
• Serve as the executive technical point of contact for Handshake AI's most strategic partners.
• Define and evolve the FDE operating model, including scoping, staffing, and shipping.
• Identify patterns across the portfolio to drive the development of reusable platforms and tooling.
• Partner with Sales, Research, and Product to shape customer relationship structures.
• Own capacity planning, hiring, and organizational design for the FDE function.

Requirements

• 8+ years of engineering, solutions engineering, or technical delivery experience.
• 2+ years leading high-performing technical teams.
• Proven experience leading customer-facing technical teams.
• Ability to code regularly and maintain technical credibility.
• Strong communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Sharp instincts on prioritization and portfolio management.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI/ML product integrations or production reliability in AI systems.
• Familiarity with distributed systems and backend architecture at scale.
• Experience building reusable platforms or internal tooling.
• Background working with operations-heavy or research-adjacent organizations.