Strategic Customer Success Manager, Federal

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

As a Strategic CSM on the Federal Accounts team, you are Handshake's most senior customer-facing partner, responsible for owning the full success lifecycle of our most complex government agency relationships. You will drive value realization, strategic alignment, and deep adoption across a focused book of high-stakes accounts, while navigating the unique procurement cycles, compliance requirements, and stakeholder hierarchies that define the federal space.

This is a role for someone who can command a room with a Chief Human Capital Officer and then turn around and troubleshoot a workflow with a recruiting coordinator, someone equally at home in a strategic vision conversation and a tactical problem-solving session. You will be a critical voice internally, too: translating federal agency needs into product and program insights that shape how Handshake serves the public sector.

• Adoption & Expansion: Own onboarding, implementation, and ongoing adoption for large, complex government organizations, building tailored workflows and programs that map to each agency's mission, hiring priorities, and compliance requirements.
• Federal Relationship Management: Build and maintain deep relationships across agency hierarchies, contracting officers, HR leads, program managers, and senior officials, and serve as a trusted, long-term partner across every level of the org.
• Strategic Value Delivery: Lead Executive Business Reviews and strategic planning sessions that tie Handshake outcomes directly to agency hiring goals, diversity mandates, and workforce development priorities.
• Expansion & New Business Lines: Identify and pursue opportunities to grow within accounts, new business units, additional budget owners, and adjacent agency teams, using a data-driven, outcome-first narrative.
• Training & Enablement: Design and lead training for large, distributed government teams, making a complex platform accessible and valuable for users with varying levels of technical experience.
• Cross-functional Partnership: Collaborate closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Support to advocate for federal customer needs, surface product gaps, and bring the right internal resources to every account.
• Voice of the Federal Customer: Synthesize feedback from your portfolio into clear, actionable insights that help Handshake evolve its public sector strategy.

DESIRED CAPABILITIES

• 5+ years managing large, high-touch enterprise or strategic accounts (typically 10–20 accounts) with $3M+ ARR responsibility.
• Proven track record working with enterprise-level or federal customers, including navigating multi-stakeholder org charts, complex procurement processes, and long sales and renewal cycles.
• Comfortable presenting to and building relationships with senior leaders and executive decision-makers, both virtually and in-person.
• Ability to move fluidly between tactical conversations with end users and strategic discussions with agency leadership, without losing the thread of either.
• Skilled at translating product workflows and usage data into compelling business value narratives for non-technical, senior audiences.
• Strong accountability muscle, you hold customers to milestones and timelines, and you hold yourself to the same standard.
• Data-driven communicator who can build a story from metrics and make that story land with an executive audience.
• Exceptional organizational and time management skills, you manage complexity across multiple stakeholders, timelines, and workstreams without dropping the ball.

EXTRA CREDIT

• Direct experience working with federal agencies in a talent, HR tech, or workforce development context.
• Familiarity with government procurement structures (e.g., contracting officers, option years, agency budget cycles).
• A track record of building internal playbooks, processes, or frameworks that upleveled your team's approach.
• A bias toward creative problem-solving in ambiguous, evolving environments.
• A genuine passion for Handshake's mission, connecting students to opportunity, and excitement about expanding that mission into the public sector.

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, $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 joinhandshake.com/careers http://joinhandshake.com/careers. http://joinhandshake.com/careers.Your