Software Engineer (Build Review & Test)

• We’re looking for a Software Engineer to make development at Handshake faster, more reliable, and easier to understand
• Coding agents are a core part of how our engineers work
• Both need reliable tools, useful instructions, and clear feedback to produce code we can trust
• You’ll build and improve tools that run builds and tests, review changes, and explain failures
• Your work will help engineers and agents spend less time waiting or debugging and more time building
• You’ll care as much about how a tool feels to use as whether it works
• Is it fast?
• Are the next steps clear?
• Does an error message help someone solve the problem?
• You’ll use developer surveys, conversations with engineers, and system data to guide improvements
• Build and maintain tools for builds, tests, code review, and merging changes. Make them useful for both engineers and coding agents
• Find and fix slow builds, unreliable tests, and confusing errors. Address the cause rather than asking users to work around the problem
• Make tests faster and more reliable. Split work across machines, reuse previous results when safe, and keep tests from interfering with one another
• Make failures easier to understand. Help users see what went wrong and what they can do next
• Improve the tools, instructions, and environments that coding agents use to write, test, and debug code
• Help build automated code reviews and checks. Reduce repetitive work while keeping clear standards for quality and safety
• Use developer surveys and direct feedback to find problems worth solving. Work with teammates to release improvements safely, then check whether they made a difference
• Share what you learn through documentation, code reviews, and working sessions with other engineers

Benefits

• Health Insurance: Comprehensive medical , dental, and vision coverage
• Fertility and family forming: Through a partnership, Handshake offers comprehensive family benefits, including infertility treatments and a $15K stipend, to its employees.
• LGTBQ+ coverage: All medical plans cover transgender services.
• Mental health: Discounts on a variety of wellness apps and an Employee Assistance Program with access to five free counseling sessions.
• Tax savings: Tax-advantaged benefits to save money on healthcare, dependent care, and other expenses.
• Life & disability insurance: Essential benefits and automatic coverage with basic life insurance, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage.
• 401k match: Dollar-for-dollar match up to 1% of pay, with a max of $1,200 per year.
• Equity: Our equity program includes grants at hire, refresher grants after two years of tenure, and grants alongside promotions.
• Financial management: Handshake partners to provide free professional financial planning services.
• Learning & development: Employees are provided with an annual stipend to use towards professional development, career development workshops, manager trainings, and 1-on-1 coaching through external partnerships
• Community leader support: Employee Resource Group leaders are compensated with a quarterly bonus for the high-impact work the role requires
• Parental leave: Leaves of 16 weeks for birth-giving parents and 10 weeks for non-birth-giving parents; the policy applies to adoptions as well. Handshake also partners to provide one-on-one coaching on preparing for leave and coming back from leave
• Flexible time off: No accrued time off or waiting period to take vacation. Two paid flexible holiday days off to observe holidays that closely align with religious, cultural, and personal needs
• Sabbatical: Paid six-week sabbatical to recharge and reset beginning at six years of continuous, full-time employment, and every four years thereafter
• Volunteer time off: Two days off for social and civil activism, volunteer work, and/or any related activities, including attending and participating in protests

• Curiosity about unfamiliar code and the patience to learn how a system works
• Experience shipping and maintaining production software, including writing automated tests
• You don’t need a background in developer tools or AI. We’re looking for strong coding skills, curiosity, and a desire to make complex systems easier to use
• Hands-on experience with JavaScript unit testing and end to end tests with tools like Jest, Vitest and Playwright
• A careful approach to debugging. You test your assumptions and follow the evidence to find the cause
• About 3–5 years of professional software engineering experience, or comparable hands-on experience
• A high bar for user experience. You notice small frustrations, listen to users, and care about the details that make tools easy to use
• Strong JavaScript or TypeScript skills and experience in the JavaScript ecosystem. Your background may be server-side, such as Node.js or Bun, or browser-based
• Clear communication and a willingness to give feedback, learn from others, and share what you know
• The ability to finish clearly defined projects on your own. You also know when to ask for help or work through a problem with a teammate
• You don’t need to know every tool we use. Any of the following would be helpful:
• Work on build systems or continuous integration (CI), using tools such as Buildkite, GitHub Actions, Docker, or Kubernetes
• Experience making software builds and releases reliable and secure
• Use of logs, metrics, or traces to investigate problems
• Work on automated code review or testing, with or without AI
• Hands-on use of coding agents, including giving them useful instructions and checking their results
• Experience making tests faster or fixing tests that fail without a code change
• Experience building or extending test frameworks and shared libraries that make authoring tests more efficient and reliable