Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

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.

Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) is the engineering team that unblocks high-priority, customer-facing work for Handshake AI's most strategic partners. FDEs are technical builders: they ship end-to-end solutions in close collaboration with researchers, operators, and partner technical teams.

As Senior Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering, you sit at the intersection of technical leadership and people management keeping one hand on the hardest customer problems while building and developing a team of 10 engineers across multiple engagements. You'll stay technically engaged, writing code and designing systems alongside your team, but your primary leverage is creating the conditions for exceptional engineering: setting the technical and operational standard for the FDE organization, shaping strategy and structure, and growing the people who deliver it.

This is a player-coach role at scale. You lead by example technically, develop strong TLMs and senior ICs beneath you, and build the systems and playbooks that make the team compounding. The best person for this job knows when to step in, reviewing designs, challenging assumptions, and rolling up their sleeves on the hardest problems, and when to step back and let the team they've built carry the weight.

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  8+ years of engineering, solutions engineering, or technical delivery experience, with meaningful depth in backend, fullstack, or systems work.

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  2+ years leading high-performing technical teams, with a track record of developing strong ICs and managers.

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  Proven experience leading customer-facing technical teams where success depended on credibility, clarity, and execution.

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  Obsessed with operating alongside the team: reviewing designs, challenging assumptions, and stepping in when problems get ambiguous or high-stakes.

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  Fluent across engineering and business context, equally comfortable debating architecture with engineers and aligning outcomes with sales, product, and customer leaders.

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  Excellent communicator who can modulate the message across technical and non-technical audiences; strong executive presence in the room and in writing.

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  Still codes regularly and wants to keep coding, technical credibility is non-negotiable in this role.

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  Sharp instincts on prioritization and portfolio management across many concurrent, high-stakes engagements.

• 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 from bespoke customer solutions.

• Background working with operations-heavy or research-adjacent organizations.