Trust & Safety Specialist — 6-Month Contract

Role overview

Handshake is hiring a Trust & Safety Specialist for a six-month contract. The role focuses on protecting platform integrity by examining user activity, investigating concerns, enforcing policies, and spotting risks that could affect users or the marketplace. This team supports a safe, dependable experience for students, employers, universities, and other platform participants.

We are looking for someone who is highly detail-focused, analytical, and comfortable making judgment calls. The position works closely with teams across Customer Support, Product, Legal, Security, and Operations to resolve safety issues and strengthen enforcement practices.

Work location and schedule

This is a remote contract role. If you work from home, you must be based in one of the following states or districts: AZ, DC, CA, CO, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NM, NV, NJ, NY, OR, PA, SD, TN, TX, VA, WA, or WI.

Available schedules include:

• Tuesdays through Saturdays, 7:00am–4:00pm ET or 12:00pm–9:00pm PT
• Sundays through Thursdays, 7:00am–4:00pm ET or 12:00pm–9:00pm PT

Responsibilities

• Examine reports of suspicious, abusive, fraudulent, or policy-breaking behavior on the platform and carry out investigations.
• Assess user accounts, employer profiles, job listings, messages, and related platform activity for trust and safety concerns.
• Apply Handshake’s community standards, acceptable use rules, and marketplace policies in a consistent and accurate way.
• Detect recurring abuse patterns such as fraud, spam, scams, impersonation, and other harmful conduct.
• Keep investigation records clear and complete, including evidence reviewed, actions taken, and the reasoning behind decisions.
• Handle escalations from internal partners and provide prompt, thoughtful case resolution.
• Work through moderation and investigation queues while meeting quality and productivity targets.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to improve how issues are detected, escalated, and enforced.
• Share feedback on policy gaps, emerging threats, tooling requirements, and workflow improvements.
• Protect user privacy and handle sensitive information with care and good judgment.

Qualifications

• 1–3+ years of experience in trust and safety, content moderation, fraud investigation, risk operations, marketplace integrity, customer support, or a similar area.
• Strong judgment and the ability to apply policies consistently in nuanced situations.
• Excellent attention to detail and comfort working through large volumes of information.
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to document decisions and summarize complex issues clearly.
• Experience using internal tools, ticketing systems, CRM platforms, or moderation queues.
• Ability to balance multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment.
• Comfort dealing with sensitive, distressing, or unclear content, along with a high level of integrity, discretion, and respect for privacy.

Preferred experience

• Background with a two-sided marketplace, career platform, social platform, SaaS product, or online community.
• Familiarity with common abuse tactics such as phishing, scams, spam, fake accounts, impersonation, and social engineering.
• Experience with policy enforcement, account review, fraud detection, or abuse investigations.
• Ability to use data, internal signals, and investigative reasoning to evaluate risk.
• Previous work with cross-functional partners in Product, Legal, Security, or Support.

Success in the role

• Decisions are accurate, consistent, and thoroughly documented.
• Unsafe activity is reduced and trust across the platform improves.
• Repeated abuse trends are identified and escalated effectively.
• Internal partners receive clear communication, and operations improve over time.
• You balance speed, quality, empathy, and sound judgment in daily casework.

Contract details

This position runs for six months. Work may include queue-based review, investigations, escalations, documentation, and coordination with internal teams. Extension or conversion after the contract is not guaranteed and will depend on business needs and performance.

Equal opportunity

Handshake is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to an inclusive workplace. Candidates from underrepresented communities are encouraged to apply.

About Handshake

Handshake was founded on the belief that everyone should have a path to a strong career, no matter where they studied or who they know. The platform supports 25 million job seekers, more than 1 million employers, and 1,600 educational institutions.

In 2025, the company launched Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. It works directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the limits of data. The business has grown from zero to about $1B in annual run rate and pays around $60M to more than 30,000 individuals each month.

Why join now

• Help shape how careers evolve in the AI economy at global scale.
• Work alongside top AI labs, Fortune 500 partners, and leading educational institutions.
• Collaborate with engineers, scientists, operators, and leaders from companies such as Palantir, Meta, Scale AI, and former YC founders.
• Contribute to a fast-growing business with billions in revenue.