Freelance Software Developer Jobs in San Ramon, CA

About Handshake

Handshake is the career network for the AI economy. 20 million knowledge workers, 1,600 educational institutions, 1 million employers (including 100% of the Fortune 50), and every foundational AI lab trust Handshake to power career discovery, hiring, and upskilling, from freelance AI training gigs to first internships to full-time careers and beyond. This unique value is leading to unparalleled growth; in 2025, we tripled our ARR at scale.

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

• Work hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions

• Join a team with leadership from Scale AI, Meta, xAI, Notion, Coinbase, and Palantir, among others

• Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue
  

About the Role
Handshake AI powers expert-labeled data collection at scale, matching domain experts with leading AI companies to train frontier models. We're hiring a Senior Product Manager, Coding to own the roadmap for one of our frontier data modalities: coding. You'll define what we build, for whom, and on which surfaces as we learn what customers need from human data for training models to write, debug, and reason about code.

This role is analogous to our RLE (Reinforcement Learning Environments) PM. You'll operate in high ambiguity—customers are still figuring out what "good" looks like, and the scope of coding as a data type is evolving. Your job is to navigate that ambiguity, narrow scope where it matters, and ship a coherent product that scales. You'll work closely with a cross-functional squad (engineering, design, operations) and with customer-facing teams to turn early signals into a repeatable offering.

You'll own the coding modality end-to-end, including:

• Product strategy. Develop the product vision and roadmap for coding as a human data modality. Define the right scope (e.g., code review, debugging, generation, reasoning) and the right surfaces (platform capabilities, fellow training, quality bar) as we learn from customers.

• Customer discovery. Spend time with AI labs and internal stakeholders to understand how they use coding data, what standards they care about, and where our current offering falls short. Turn discovery into prioritized bets.

• Roadmap and scope. Make hard tradeoffs. We can't build everything; you'll decide what we build first and what we defer, and communicate that clearly to engineering, operations, and leadership.

• Cross-functional leadership. Lead a squad with engineering and design partners. Partner with Operator Experience, Fellow Experience, and other modality PMs—your scope enables and constrains theirs.

• Goals and metrics. Define success for the coding modality (e.g., capacity deployed, quality outcomes, time-to-staff). Track progress and hold the team accountable.

• Launch and iteration. Run pilots, gather feedback, and iterate. You'll be close to the first few projects and responsible for turning early wins into repeatable patterns.
  Required Background

• Software development experience. You must have worked as a software developer at a tech company. FAANG or equivalent is strongly preferred. The standards and practices that matter for this data type are often discussed in terms of what those companies do; you need to speak that language and assess what "good" looks like.

• Small startup experience. You must have operated on a small, early-stage team in a context where you were discovering customer problems, not just executing a known playbook. You're comfortable with ambiguity, shifting scope, and defining the problem as much as solving it.

Desired Capabilities

• 5+ years in product, including time as a PM partnering with engineering to ship. Experience in a frontier or emerging domain (new data type, new customer segment, 0→1) is a strong plus.

• Technical credibility. You can read and reason about code, review technical specs, and have informed opinions about code quality, review practices, and developer workflows. You don't need to code day-to-day, but you've done it professionally.

• Comfort with ambiguity. You've worked in environments where the problem wasn't fully defined. You're good at narrowing scope, saying no, and turning messy feedback into a clear direction.

• Customer- and data-informed. You use discovery and data to prioritize, but you also make decisions when the signal is incomplete. You're action-oriented.

• Systems thinker. You see how the coding modality connects to platform, operations, fellow training, and quality. You spot dependencies and edge cases and factor them into roadmap decisions.

Bonus Points

• Experience at a human data company, AI lab, or devtools company

• Prior role owning a frontier or net-new product area (0→1, new modality, or new segment)

• Familiarity with AI/ML training data, annotation workflows, or code evaluation benchmarks

We Offer

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.

Compensation Range: $180K - $220K