R&D Insights and Operations - Growth

Gusto is on a mission to grow the small business economy, 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, Gusto is building a workplace that reflects the people it serves. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

Gusto is looking for a builder to help construct a world-class Growth organization. This is an opinionated leader motivated by creating big-picture vision and digging into the biggest opportunities, sizing them, and building the systems, rigor, and connective tissue that let Growth and GTM operate cohesively. This role is a member of Gusto's Insights & Operations (I&O) team, embedded against Growth, partnering closely with the Head of Growth and CRO-side GTM leadership. The role is intentionally IC-first, starting deep on the highest-leverage problems in Growth, building a data-driven point of view, and driving it to outcome. As trust and scope grow, the role is expected to expand, most likely into owning the operating bridge between Growth and the broader go-to-market organization, and potentially into building and leading a small team.

Gusto's Growth organization is on an ambitious trajectory, building toward a much more self-serve-led motion. As Growth scales, there is a chance to be more intentional about how it connects to Product and go-to-market teams (sales, demand gen, expansion sales, pricing, etc.), building a shared, prioritized roadmap and clear visibility into dependencies from the ground up.

• Identify and size the highest-leverage opportunities for Growth, going from fuzzy problem to clear-eyed analysis, recommendation, and plan.
• Anchor on problems, not headcount: dig into what's slowing Growth down, define how to build a best-in-class engine, size the opportunity, and decide what's worth solving before proposing who or what is needed.
• Build the operating rhythm for Growth: planning cycles, prioritization, and a shared, prioritized roadmap that makes trade-offs and dependencies visible across Growth R&D, Product R&D, and GTM.
• Bring real analytical rigor to how Growth invests — attribution, LTV, and testing/experimentation discipline — so decisions about resource deployment are tied clearly to business impact.
• Close the gap between Growth R&D and go-to-market: build mechanisms (shared roadmap, dependency tracking, decision forums) that let both orgs operate as one team.
• Design an operating system anchored in technology vs. humans: build the muscle and mechanisms for automation, and hand off ownership once a system is running.
• Act as a trusted advisor to Growth leadership: pressure-test strategy, surface risks and blind spots early, and bring an opinionated point of view.
• Use AI as a default: build reusable, AI-powered workflows for planning, synthesis, and reporting so manual coordination is the exception.
• Spot when a team is optimizing for the wrong thing and push toward a fundamentally different path.
• Raise the bar for how I&O operates, sharing what's working and questioning what isn't.

• 15+ years in operations, business operations, or strategy & ops at a high-growth technology company, including time spent building a growth function from an earlier, less mature stage.
• Direct experience with growth decision-making: attribution and LTV modeling, testing and experimentation, and translating marketing/growth spend into demonstrable business impact.
• A track record of working at the intersection of growth and go-to-market (or product and sales), connecting teams with different incentives around a shared goal.
• A strong point of view on how operations should scale, resisting the urge to grow headcount by default.
• Comfort starting as an individual contributor, balanced with a demonstrated ability to build and lead teams when needed.
• Exceptional organizational skills, able to manage multiple senior stakeholders and competing priorities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to tailor for executive audiences and drive alignment on hard, ambiguous trade-offs.
• Financial acumen: comfortable managing financial tracking and reporting across a complex org.
• Low ego and a bias toward collaboration.
• Deep empathy and enthusiasm for small business customers.

Cash compensation for this role is between $188,510 - $232,496/year in Denver and between $221,275 - $298,721/year for New York/San Francisco. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, experience, and expertise. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required.

Apply through the Gusto Greenhouse job board at the provided URL.