Merchandise Planner

Pay: Up to $80/hour

Overview

Handshake is looking for retail merchandising 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 merchandise planning, inventory optimization, and promotional strategy to evaluate AI-generated content and provide feedback that helps AI better understand retail merchandising workflows and planning 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 merchandising or merchandise planning, in roles such as:

  • Merchandise Planner or Senior Merchandise Planner

  • Or equivalent roles in the retail industry

• Hands-on experience with merchandising workflows, including:

  • Demand forecasting and in-season reforecast

  • Markdown optimization

  • Hindsight analysis and promotional campaign planning

• Strong written communication skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work independently and asynchronously with AI research teams.