Startups

Strategic Projects Associate

Handshake · San Francisco, CA · On-site

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About Handshake

Backed by Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed.

About the role

Handshake is expanding into cutting-edge AI research and development. We're building a world-class network of expert Fellows — including PhDs, researchers, and specialists — who drive forward the next generation of AI through domain-specific applications, model evaluations, and specialized research. Our work is deeply rooted in Human Data — high-quality, human-labeled datasets that power the development and evaluation of frontier models.

What they're looking for

  • A recent graduate (or graduating soon) with a strong academic record
  • You’ve completed internships in tech, consulting, banking, financial services, or startups
  • A strategic thinker with strong analytical and organizational skills
  • A self-starter who thrives in fast-moving environments and enjoys building from the ground up
  • An excellent communicator who can work effectively across teams and with external partners
  • Proficient in productivity tools such as Google Sheets or Excel, Google Docs, and Google Drive for organizing and sharing information
More about this role

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.

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

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...

Read the full posting on Handshake's site ↗

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