Career network connecting 20M workers, 1.6M institutions, and 1M employers for AI-era hiring
Handshake operates a two-sided labor marketplace spanning 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, and 1 million employers. The tech stack reveals a hiring-ops-first organization (Salesforce, Gong, Outreach, Gainsight, Workday) layered with AI evaluation infrastructure (GPT-4, PyTorch, prompt engineering). Research and engineering dominate the hiring mix, with 63 and 53 active roles respectively—and the project list shows intense focus on LLM quality control (prompt development, response evaluation, legal content review), suggesting Handshake is building internal AI tooling to scale talent matching across its network rather than simply adopting off-the-shelf models.
Notable leadership hires: Program Lead, Chief of Staff, Strategic Projects Lead
Handshake is a career network platform founded in 2014 that connects knowledge workers, educational institutions, and employers—including all Fortune 500 companies. The platform facilitates job discovery, hiring, and workforce upskilling across entry-level through full-time roles, and serves as a hub for AI-related work from training gigs to permanent positions. With 501–1,000 employees based in San Francisco, Handshake operates at scale across higher education (a core distribution channel), enterprise recruitment, and increasingly, AI talent development. The company uses a combination of standard sales infrastructure (Salesforce, Gong, Outreach) and emerging AI systems (GPT-4, PyTorch, domain-specific LLM prompts) to power candidate-employer matching.
Handshake runs on Python, Java, Ruby, and SQL; deploys on AWS, GCP, and Azure; uses Salesforce for CRM, Workday for HR, and GPT-4 alongside PyTorch for AI features. Auth is handled via Okta, SAML, OAuth 2.0, and JWT.
Handshake's top projects center on LLM evaluation and AI prompt engineering—domain-specific prompt development, AI model evaluation, legal response review, and fellow matching systems. The company is building AI-driven talent matching capabilities in-house.
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