Senior Product Manager, Forward Deployed — Handshake AI
Back to Jobs
HandshakeGet Smart Job AI Coach in the appFree on iOS and Android 






Senior Product Manager, Forward Deployed — Handshake AI
180,000–220,000 / Year
Location
San Francisco, CA
Experience
Senior
Posted
Jul 14, 2026
Apply by
August 13, 2026
Applicants
0
Early applicantEasy applyFull-timeWork from Office
Job Description
## 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
Handshake AI builds the training data that frontier labs use to push their models forward. Our Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team is a high-leverage group of engineers who embed directly with our highest-value customers, become experts in each customer’s specific needs, and build the bespoke solutions that win business and make engagements succeed. We’re hiring a Senior Product Manager to be the first PM embedded with this team. This is a highly entrepreneurial role: you’ll be designing the product function for FDE as much as running it.
A centerpiece of the role is off-platform tasking: our customers often want work completed directly in their own tools and environments like lab-built annotation surfaces, specialized research environments, and third-party platforms we integrate with on their behalf. You’ll own that experience end to end, making it as seamless and trustworthy for our fellows to discover and access work on external surfaces, complete tasks, track time, get paid, and receive quality feedback. You’ll be the expert on each customer’s unique environment, and what it takes to make fellows successful on them.
You’ll embed with a customer, deeply understand their tooling and constraints, ship the solution that unlocks the engagement fast, and then help identify which of those solutions should graduate into the platform so the next ten customers get them out of the box. You’ll work across whatever our highest-value customers need next, with the autonomy to move quickly and the visibility that comes with revenue-critical work.
## What You’ll Own
- Customer-embedded discovery and delivery - Sit with our most important customers and their engineering teams, understand their tools, workflows, and constraints firsthand, and translate what you learn into solutions FDE can ship in days or weeks, not quarters.
- The off-platform tasking experience - The end-to-end journey of a fellow working in a customer’s environment: discovering and claiming work, getting access and credentials, completing tasks, tracking time, getting paid accurately, and receiving quality feedback.
- Bespoke-to-platform graduation - Influence what solutions should generalize into platform primitives that make every future integration faster, turning FDE’s best one-off solutions into durable product solutions.
- Goals, metrics, and tracking - Define success metrics that measure speed and repeatability: time from a new customer need to a shipped solution, time from a new customer surface to first task live, fellow experience on external surfaces, and how much of each new engagement is served by existing product versus net-new build.
- Cross-functional partnership - Work with FDE engineers on scoping and sequencing, with Operations on running customer projects at scale, with platform teams when bespoke work graduates into core product, and directly with customers as the product voice of the engagement.
## Desired Capabilities
- 5+ years as a product manager shipping production code with engineering teams, ideally in customer-facing, integrations, or platform contexts.
- Entrepreneurial and forward-deployed by instinct: you’re energized by embedding with a customer, understanding their world firsthand, and building the thing that unlocks the deal without waiting for a playbook.
- Platform over one-off mindset. You’ve built products where every customer looks different from the last, and you know the difference between shipping another bespoke solution and building a configurable system that handles needs nobody anticipated.
- Systems thinker. You can connect the dots across customer environments, worker experience, and platform infrastructure, spot the edge cases, and integrate them into coherent product decisions.
- Strong product instincts in ambiguous, fast-iterating spaces. You can scope a problem from a customer conversation to a PRD to a shipped feature in hours, not days.
- Data-informed but action-oriented. You use data and customer signals to prioritize, but you trust user feedback and move quickly when the signal is clear.
## Bonus Points
- Experience as a PM (or forward deployed engineer) at a company known for embedding with customers (forward-deployed, solutions, or professional-services-adjacent product work).
- Experience with human-data, annotation, or AI training-data workflows, or exposure to frontier-lab data operations and tooling.
- Experience building integrations, browser extensions, or products that instrument work happening in third-party software.
- Experience at a marketplace or gig platform where worker experience and marketplace integrity had to be balanced.
- 0→1 experience standing up new product surfaces inside a fast-moving research-adjacent org without a fully formed playbook.
## We Offer
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
💻 Remote & Office: Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office
🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days
🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses
Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at http://joinhandshake.com/careers[.](http://joinhandshake.com/careers.Your)
Key Responsibilities
- Embed with high-value customers to understand their tools, workflows, and constraints.
- Design and ship end-to-end off-platform tasking experiences for fellows.
- Identify and graduate bespoke solutions into platform primitives.
- Define success metrics for speed, repeatability, and customer experience.
- Collaborate with engineering, operations, and platform teams to scope and sequence work.
Skills Required
Product ManagementProduct StrategyPRD WritingData AnalysisCustomer DiscoveryIntegration DesignEntrepreneurial mindsetSystems thinkingCross-functional partnershipCommunicationProblem solvingAdaptabilityHuman-data workflowsAnnotation workflowsAI training-data workflowsFrontier-lab data operationsIntegrationsBrowser extensionsMarketplace platformsGig platforms0→1 experienceAutonomyVisibility
Benefits
- Equity
- 401(k) match
- Competitive compensation
- Financial coaching
- Paid parental leave
- Fertility benefits
- Parental coaching
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Mental health support
- $500 wellness stipend
- $2,000 learning stipend
- Internet provided
- Commuting support
- Free lunch/gym in SF office
- Flexible PTO
- 15 holidays
- 2 flex days
- Team outings
- Referral bonuses
App exclusive · Free
Smart Job AI Coach
Your personal interview coach on every job — readiness tips, profile improvements, and role-specific prep. Available only in the Pulse Job app.
Interview readiness
See how prepared you are and what to improve for each role.
Personalized tips
Actionable suggestions based on your profile and the job.
After you apply
Keep coaching momentum from job detail through application success.
Similar roles for you
Matched using this role's title and skills. Open the job search anytime to see every listing.

Senior Product Manager (AI Agents)
Traba
180,000–210,000 / Year
Full-timeEasy applyWork from Office
New York CitySenior

Senior Manager, Forward Deployed AI Engineer
Baringa Partners
Full-timeWork from Office
LondonSenior

Forward Deployed Engineer (Perm, Italy, Remote + Travel)
NearForm
75,000–95,000 / Year
Full-timeEasy applyHybrid
ItalySenior

Senior Full Stack Engineer (Web Focused)
SMG Swiss Marketplace Group
Full-timeEasy applyHybrid
BelgradeSenior

Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (France)
Parloa
Full-timeEasy applyWork from Office
France; ParisSenior

Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (Spain)
Parloa
Full-timeEasy applyWork from Home
Madrid; Remotely in SpainSenior