Principal Software Engineer

Gusto's mission is to grow the small business economy by handling payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR for over 500,000 small businesses nationwide. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, all full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

We're hiring seasoned engineers to join our teams that work on core platform capabilities, improving existing systems for extensibility and scalability, and building the future of Gusto's Payroll and Tax systems. As a Gusto Software Engineer at this level, you'll be guiding projects end-to-end by influencing initial feature specs, understanding how to take existing systems closer to desired end states, executing on projects, and maintaining code that powers core experiences.

Payroll is the beating heart of Gusto's business. Pay Group (payroll and tax) teams are responsible for the product, ops, and service components Gusto uses to onboard customers, process payrolls, calculate taxes and deductions, pay and file with tax agencies, and maintain compliance on behalf of the customers. Sub-teams include Tax Accuracy, Ledger, Engine, and Platform.

• Function as a Technical Lead across multiple teams in Payroll Services, keeping engineers unblocked and delivering high-quality work.
• Design, build, and test the foundation that supports compliant payroll for millions of people.
• Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and TypeScript/React applications in the world.
• Collaborate on complex and ambiguous problems with cross-functional teams.
• Mentor and grow fellow engineers.
• Drive the product development process from concept to launch.
• Improve productivity and happiness of teams with services, tools, and APIs.
• Stay up-to-date with advancements in AI and Machine Learning, applying this knowledge to projects.

• Successful applicants typically have at least 15+ years of experience.
• Able to build maintainable, structured, well-documented code.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, data modeling, and system design.
• Experience working across 3+ teams, influencing both product and team direction.
• Experience working on platform products depended upon throughout the company.
• Experience engineering, designing, building, and supporting large scale systems in production.
• An aptitude for bringing clarity and simplicity to complex problems.
• Experience operationalizing and scaling large interconnected production systems.
• Enthusiasm for a collaborative, test-driven environment.
• Experience in complex highly regulated domains (HR, Payroll, Taxes, or Compliance).
• Experience using AI tools to build, test, and iterate on products quickly.
• Understanding of how to evaluate AI-driven outputs using clear success criteria.
• Commitment to staying current on emerging backend technologies and AI frameworks.
• Willingness to contribute to shared tools or templates that enhance AI experimentation.

Cash compensation is targeted at $215,000/yr to $252,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $251,000/yr to $295,000/yr for San Francisco, Seattle & New York. Stock equity is additional. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

Apply through the provided link.