Strategic Customer Success Manager, Federal

About this role

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/c

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