Strategic Customer Success Manager (Federal)

• 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

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