Senior Staff Software Engineer

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

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Growth Onboarding team, you will own the experience that turns curious signups into activated, thriving customers. You'll work full-stack and cross-functionally, inventing and building net-new 0-to-1 experiences that reimagine onboarding as a proactive AI teammate. You'll partner with Product, Design, and Data to frame problems, form hypotheses, and validate them with real customers in weeks.

• Own meaningful slices of the signup-to-activation experience end to end, from data model to UI, and ship measurable improvements.
• Invent and prototype net-new, 0-to-1 experiences, bringing your own ideas for how AI can reimagine onboarding.
• Identify where AI meaningfully removes customer effort and build those experiences thoughtfully into the flow.
• Design onboarding as modular, reusable building blocks so new entry points can be added quickly.
• Raise the engineering bar through pragmatic technical direction, high-quality code, strong reviews, and mentoring.
• Make sharp scoping calls under a time box, shipping the simplest version that proves or disproves an idea.

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including building and shipping customer-facing products at scale.
• A product-minded engineer who starts from the customer problem and the metric that matters.
• Demonstrated ability to move fast and execute with high quality.
• Experience applying AI/LLM capabilities to real product problems, with judgment to know where it adds value.
• A founder mindset: high ownership, comfort with ambiguity, and a bias toward action.
• A track record of raising the bar through technical leadership and mentorship.
• Strong full-stack fundamentals and versatility to work wherever the problem is (front end, back end, data).

Cash compensation for this role is targeted at $223,000/yr to $278,000/yr for San Francisco. Stock equity is additional. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise.

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.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law. Reasonable accommodations are available for qualified individuals with disabilities.