About Handshake
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.
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
- 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
About the Role
Handshake is seeking a Senior Security Engineer to own the architecture, design, and implementation of our enterprise identity automation and governance ecosystem. You’ll define the long-term IAM automation strategy, build resilient and scalable lifecycle workflows, and enable secure-by-default identity operations across SaaS, cloud, and internal platforms. You’ll partner closely with Security, IT Engineering, People Operations, and Product/Platform Engineering to deliver highly automated, auditable, and reliable identity solutions.
In this role, you will:
- Architect, build, and own automated onboarding, offboarding, and access-change workflows across Okta, Workday, SCIM, and event-driven systems.
- Engineer integration layers between identity platforms and internal applications using Python, REST APIs, Webhooks, and Terraform.
- Implement error-handling, reconciliation logic, telemetry, and monitoring to ensure reliability and determinism in identity lifecycle events.
- Modernize existing provisioning logic and replace manual processes with scalable automation frameworks.
- Develop tooling and pipelines enabling version-controlled, testable, observable IAM automation.
- Act as a technical owner for Handshake’s IAM ecosystem, including Okta, Google Workspace, GCP, AWS IAM, and internal access systems.
- Engineer and optimize authentication & authorization protocols (OIDC, OAuth2, SAML, JWT), fine-grained access policies, and scalable RBAC/ABAC models.
- Build custom automation using Okta Workflows or API-driven orchestration.
- Design SOC2-compliant access controls, approvals, attestations, and auditability mechanisms.
- Build automated access certification systems with full data lineage.
- Conduct identity-related incident forensics and implement preventative automation.
- Provide cross-functional leadership, setting standards, best practices, and reference architectures for identity automation.
- Serve as service owner for IAM automation platforms with accountability for uptime, consistency, and continuous improvement.
Desired Capabilities
- 4–7+ years of hands-on IAM engineering, identity automation, or identity governance experience.
- Strong scripting/automation skills in Python, Node.js, and REST-based integrations.
- Experience with IAM platforms such as Okta, Google Workspace/GCP, Azure AD, or similar.
- Deep understanding of identity protocols, token flows, SCIM, and distributed lifecycle orchestration.
- Experience with Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code frameworks.
- Ability to diagnose complex identity issues across SaaS, cloud, and distributed systems.
- Strong understanding of DevOps practices, observability, and secure engineering principles.
- Demonstrated ownership mindset across architecture, implementation, monitoring, and iterative improvement.
Extra Credit
- Advanced experience with GCP IAM, Google Workspace IAM, AWS IAM, cross-account access patterns, and policy automation.
- Experience with Okta Workflows, SailPoint/IGA, or Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions.
- Experience designing scalable authorization models for high-growth or distributed organizations.
- Certifications such as Okta Architect, Azure Identity Engineer, CISSP.
- Prior experience in SaaS, high-growth, or distributed engineering environments.
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, wellness stipend 📚 Growth: 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 **joinhandshake.com/careers**.