Merchandising & Category Management Specialist

Overview

Handshake is looking for Merchandising & 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 merchandising and 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 merchandising, category management, or buying, in roles such as:

• Merchandiser
• Merchandise Planner
• Category Manager
• Buyer
• Or equivalent roles in the retail industry

Hands-on experience with merchandising and category management workflows, including:

• Pricing strategy (including tariff 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.