Head of Engineering, AI Platform

Gusto is building AI agents that help small business owners get work done, and AI Platform is the group that builds those agents and the underlying platform other teams across Gusto use to build agents of their own. This role leads the whole group: an organization of around 25 engineers together with the managers who run each area. The platform is already in production running a growing number of agents, so much of the work now is scaling it — helping teams settle into their charters, deciding what the shared platform should own versus what product teams build for themselves, and keeping the group aligned with Gusto's broader AI strategy.

The group owns the shared layer connecting Gusto's products to models, running multi-step agent workflows reliably, and providing the model gateway, the tool and MCP registry, and the evaluation and observability tooling, built on LangGraph and the Vercel AI SDK. Other teams build customer-facing agents on top, some working directly with customers and others automating work in the background. The group is cross-functional with product managers, designers, and data scientists, and reports to the Head of Engineering, Core Experiences.

• Lead the group's technical strategy for building agents that assist and automate work for small business owners.
• Set the technical direction and roadmap, including what the shared platform should own versus what product teams build.
• Lead and empower managers and tech leads, hiring ahead of the group's growth.
• Set engineering standards for agent behavior, treating prompts, tools, and policies as production code and owning the evaluation and guardrail approach.
• Work closely with product and data science partners and teams across Gusto that build on the platform.
• Represent AI engineering to senior leadership and keep the group connected to Gusto's broader AI strategy.
• Champion AI-native ways of working.

• 12+ years in engineering, including at least 5 leading through other managers and tech leads.
• Track record of shipping AI or agent products that people rely on, with clear ownership of the engineering behind them.
• Deep understanding of LLM agents, orchestration, tool calling, RAG, and the evaluation and monitoring that keep them dependable.
• Ability to set technical strategy across several teams and see it through.
• Enough technical depth to engage senior engineers on difficult architecture decisions.
• Experience growing an engineering organization.
• Treat reliability, evaluation, and guardrails as core engineering work.
• Comfort leading a cross-functional group.

Plus: experience across both platform and product engineering, building with a framework like LangGraph or the Vercel AI SDK, or leading in fintech or another regulated environment.

Cash compensation targeted at $274,000 to $305,000 in Denver and most remote locations, and $321,000 to $356,000 for San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. Annual cash incentives and stock equity are additional. Final offers determined by candidate experience, level, and expertise.

All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

San Francisco, CA - Hybrid. Employees based in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City are expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week. The San Francisco office expectations encompass the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.