Category Manager

Overview

Handshake is looking for retail category management professionals to support AI research through flexible, hourly contract work. This is not a traditional job. You'll draw on your hands-on experience with pricing strategy, markdown planning, and competitive analysis to evaluate AI-generated content and provide feedback that helps AI better understand retail category management workflows and practices.

This is an ongoing, project-based opportunity that can be done alongside research, teaching, postdoctoral work, or industry employment.

Details

• This project involves using your professional experience and hands-on knowledge of the tools you use in your daily work to create expert-level training data and evaluate AI-generated responses for accuracy and relevance. No prior AI experience required.
• Fully remote with a flexible, asynchronous schedule and no minimum hour requirement; most contributors work approximately 5–20 hours per week when participating in an active project.
• Placement depends on current project needs, with opportunities to be considered for future projects as they become available.

Qualifications

• At least 2 years of professional experience in retail category management or buying, in roles such as:

  • Category Manager

  • Or equivalent roles in the retail industry
• Hands-on experience with category management workflows, including:

  • Tariff pricing and competitive pricing analysis

  • Markdown optimization and hindsight analysis
  • Promotional campaign planning
• Strong written communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work independently and asynchronously with AI research teams.