About the role
About Handshake Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career, regardless of where they went to school or who they know. Today, we power 25 million job seekers, 1 million+ employers, and 1,600 educational institutions. In 2025, we started Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. We work directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data. We’ve grown from $0 to ~$1B run rate and pay ~$60M to over 30K individuals every month.
Why join Handshake now: Shape how every career evolves in the AI economy, at global scale, with impact your friends, family and peers can see and feel Partner hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions Work together with engineers, scientists, operators, and more from Palantir, Meta, Scale AI, and former YC founders Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue About Handshake AI Human data is the core infrastructure to AI advancement. Frontier AI labs currently improve model capabilities with various data-intensive post-training techniques. We believe that data spend for AI training will increase by 3-5x in the next few years and continue for much longer as models take on new domains. Handshake AI supports all of the frontier AI labs, working on their most complex data at the largest scale.
About
the Role As Handshake AI rapidly expands in the generative AI space, we’re looking for a Senior Manager of Growth Operations to architect and scale strategic growth initiatives that drive revenue, product adoption, and long-term market leadership. This role is both hands-on and highly strategic - you’ll lead cross-functional efforts to define and execute our growth roadmap, while guiding a team and influencing company-wide decisions. Your work will directly shape how students, employers, and institutions experience our next generation of AI-driven products. Own and lead critical growth initiatives from strategy through execution, collaborating deeply with teams across Product, Engineering, Operations, and Go-to-Market. Design and implement scalable growth systems, pipelines, and processes tailored to evolving customer needs and market demands. Oversee and optimize the entire growth funnel - from acquisition to activation - for key generative AI products and experiments. Build and lead a high-performing team, fostering a culture of curiosity, velocity, and operational excellence. Synthesize insights across product usage, market dynamics, and operational performance to surface opportunities and drive prioritization. Partner closely with Handshake AI’s leadership to shape strategic direction, define success metrics, and drive accountability across growth workstreams. Solve ambiguous, high-priority challenges with a structured, data-driven approach - helping define what “great” looks like as we scale new products and markets. Desired Capabilities 4–6+ years of experience in growth, product, strategy, or operations roles at a fast-paced technology company. 1–3 years of direct people management experience, with a strong track record of developing and supporting talent. Demonstrated success owning growth initiatives end-to-end, including designing and executing data-driven experiments that led to measurable outcomes. Experience in strategy- and operations-heavy environments (e.g., marketplaces, logistics, or AI-driven products), ideally at early-stage or high-growth startups. Advanced proficiency with data - comfortable using SQL or Python to generate insights and make decisions. Familiarity with business intelligence tools, funnel metrics, KPI tracking, and growth analytics best practices. Exceptional problem-solving and communication skills, with an ability to operate autonomously and influence cross-functional stakeholders. Bias for action - you thrive in ambiguity and are energized by building structure and scale from zero to one. Technical or engineering background is a plus. Extra Credit Experience launching or growing AI/ML-based products in B2B or B2C contexts. Background in GTM strategy or customer segmentation for highly technical products. Familiarity with developer ecosystems or technical user onboarding flows. Experience leading cross-functional pods or special task forces in startup environments.