Forward Deployed Engineer I, Handshake AI at Handshake
San Francisco, CA
$145,000–$170,000
Jul 21, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 22, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A forward-deployed engineering role focused on building and iterating on production-grade technical solutions for major AI lab customers. Day-to-day work spans the full stack — scoping requirements, prototyping tools, contributing to architectural decisions, and maintaining deployment frameworks — in close collaboration with senior engineers and customer stakeholders. Best suited to early-career engineers with 1–4 years of experience, strong React/TypeScript skills, and an interest in customer-facing technical work.
Mid level · 1+ years · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 2,200 people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 1,650–2,850
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $190,744 (middle half $167,095–$224,501).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The role is titled 'Forward Deployed Engineer' with no seniority modifier; the 1–4 year experience range and framing around learning from senior engineers support a Mid-level classification.
The 'Desired Capabilities' heading is used for all requirements — it reads as a requirements block rather than a strict 'Required' section, but the core technologies (React, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, cloud infrastructure) are stated with 'strong proficiency' and 'good understanding' language consistent with hard gates.
AWS and GCP are listed together as a single cloud infrastructure requirement; AWS is named first with GCP as an alternative.
LLMs, component libraries, CI/CD (deployment pipelines), and performance optimization appear under the 'Extra Credit' section and are marked as preferred.
No compensation figures are disclosed in the posting.
Role is 5 days/week in-office in San Francisco — not remote.
Read the full posting
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