Staff Software Engineer, RLE

About Handshake

Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, 1 million employers (including 100% of the Fortune 50), and every foundational AI lab trust Handshake to power career discovery, hiring, and upskilling, from freelance AI training gigs to first internships to full-time careers and beyond. This unique value is leading to unparalleled growth; in 2025, we tripled our ARR at scale.

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
• Work hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions
• Join a team with leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, among others
• Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue

About The Role

We’re hiring a Staff Software Engineer to lead the architecture and evolution of our Reinforcement Learning Environments (RLE) platform—the systems that define how frontier AI models learn real-world work.

This is a high-impact, technical leadership role responsible for system design, cross-team alignment, and setting the long-term technical direction of RLE.

Location: San Francisco, CA (in-office, 5 days/week)

What You’ll Do

• Define and drive architecture for scalable, extensible RLE systems and data pipelines
• Lead development of platform capabilities enabling rapid domain creation
• Partner with Research, Product, and Ops to shape strategy and execution
• Set standards for reliability, observability, performance, and data quality
• Mentor engineers and elevate engineering excellence across the team
• Identify and solve systemic bottlenecks in scaling environments and data generation

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of experience in distributed systems, backend infrastructure, or ML platforms
• Deep expertise in system design, data modeling, and scalable architectures
• Strong proficiency with TypeScript, backend systems, and modern web stacks
• Proven experience operating high-scale production systems in cloud environments
• Track record of technical leadership and cross-functional influence

Nice to Have

• Experience with RL infrastructure, simulation systems, or evaluation frameworks
• Background supporting applied AI/ML research teams
• Experience building platform-level abstractions used across multiple teams

What Success Looks Like

• RLE becomes a foundational, trusted platform across teams and use cases
• New domains scale rapidly with minimal engineering overhead
• Systems demonstrate step-function improvements in model quality and reliability
• Engineering velocity and system robustness increase across the organization

Perks

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported—and thrive at work and in life.

The below benefits are for full-time US employees.

🎯 Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company

💰 Financial Wellness: 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching

🍼 Family Support: Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching

💝 Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, $500 wellness stipend

📚 Growth: $2,000 learning stipend, ongoing development

💻 Office: Commuting support, free lunch, and gym in our SF office

🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days

🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses

Compensation Range: $265.5K - $295K