Staff / Principal

Gusto Solo is the all-in-one platform for solopreneurs and their accountants. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will help build the next chapter of Solo, working in a tight, high-leverage funnel where your work maps directly to top-line revenue. You will help build an AI-native product and are expected to be an owner with a strong product mindset, spotting problems and driving changes end to end. The team is small, scrappy, and fast-moving, so wearing many hats is essential.

Self-employed businesses are a fast-growing segment, and Gusto is betting on making Solo the true all-in-one platform. The team is fully funded and high-performing, consisting of a small group of engineers, an Engineering Manager, a dedicated Data Scientist, Designer, and GTM partner, with room to grow.

• Own end-to-end delivery of net-new product areas, from technical design through shipping.
• Use AI as a genuine multiplier in your workflow and help build AI-native experiences into the product, including MCP tools.
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Data Science, and GTM to identify problems, prototype solutions, and iterate quickly.
• Make pragmatic architecture and data-modeling decisions for problems without existing precedent at Gusto.
• Build and maintain full-stack features, from backend APIs to frontend UI, with scalability and maintainability in mind.
• Weigh in beyond the engineer lane on product framing, design tradeoffs, or GTM considerations.
• Help define engineering practices and technical foundations for a team early in its build-out.

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping full-stack features end to end.
• Proficiency across a full-stack toolkit (e.g., Ruby on Rails, React, TypeScript, GraphQL) and judgment to choose the right tool.
• Demonstrated ownership of 0→1 or greenfield projects.
• A self-driven mindset, comfortable setting direction amid ambiguity.
• Genuine, habitual use of AI tools in day-to-day engineering work.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with strong cross-functional partnership.

• Experience building for self-employed businesses or SMBs.
• Experience in a regulated or compliance-adjacent domain (fintech, payroll, tax, accounting).
• Experience shipping AI-powered or AI-augmented product experiences (agents, copilots, LLM-based tooling).
• Startup or team-of-one experience with high autonomy.

Cash compensation is targeted at $197,000–$247,000 for San Francisco, with stock equity additional. Final offers are determined by multiple factors including experience and expertise. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs).

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and is hybrid. Employees based in Denver, San Francisco, or New York City are 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 the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. A two-day travel to a Gusto office for onboarding is required.

Apply through the Gusto Greenhouse job posting.