Job Description
Overview
Sr. Staff Software Engineer, Pay Group Engineering at Gusto. Join to apply for the Sr. Staff Software Engineer, Pay Group Engineering role at Gusto.
About Gusto: At Gusto, we’re on a mission to grow the small business economy by handling payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR so owners can focus on their craft and customers. We serve over 400,000 small businesses across the country and operate with teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York.
About the Role
We’re hiring seasoned engineers to join our teams that work on core platform capabilities, improving our existing systems for extensibility and scalability, and building the future of Gusto's Payroll system. As a Gusto Software Engineer at this level, you’ll guide projects end-to-end by influencing initial feature specs, shaping how existing systems move toward desired end states, executing on projects, and maintaining code powering core experiences.
Team and Focus
Payroll is the beating heart of Gusto’s business. The Pay Group teams own the product, operations, and services used to onboard customers, process payrolls, calculate taxes & deductions, pay and file with tax agencies, and maintain compliance for customers. Sub–Teams include:
Contractors + EOR : Building a platform for hiring, paying, and managing the entire workforce, including international teammates. Focused on fast, reliable, compliant contractor payments and workflows with automation, reimbursements, and bulk onboarding.
Payroll : Core payroll infrastructure and customer experiences from setup through submission, designed to be simple, reliable, and compliant.
Tax : End-to-end payroll tax management—setup, calculation, payments, filings, and year-end communications—kept accurate and timely through robust systems and thoughtful design.
Time : Tools to schedule, track, and manage teams with automation and mobile-first workflows to reduce complexity for employers and empower employees.
Responsibilities
Design, build, and test the foundation that supports compliant payroll for millions of people
Scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and TypeScript/React applications
Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Engineering, Product Management, Design, Data Science, Compliance, Operations)
Build the software platform that powers multiple products and serves millions of businesses
Mentor and grow fellow engineers to create holistic and scalable solutions
Drive the product development process from concept to launch
Improve team productivity and happiness through the services, tools, and APIs you build
Contribute to a highly supportive environment that drives productivity and innovation
Own and drive the technical strategy and roadmap for your domain aligned with team OKRs
Identify and prioritize long-term investments to improve foundational systems and architecture
Lead improvements to incident response processes, tooling, and culture to enhance reliability
Qualifications
12+ years of experience
Experience designing and developing robust, distributed systems using multiple general-purpose programming languages
Experience guiding multiple teams on scaling, refactoring, and optimizing legacy products
Experience architecting, building, and testing large-scale production code
Ability to bring clarity to complex problems and communicate technical tradeoffs
Collaborative, test-driven mindset
Maintainable, well-documented code
Experience building fault-tolerant, mission-critical software
Experience in highly regulated domains is desired but not required
Experience in Payroll, Taxes, or Compliance domains preferred
Bonus: Ruby on Rails, TypeScript, and React
Please note:
Travel to Gusto’s Denver office for onboarding is required for this position. If you have questions about this requirement, share them with your recruiter.
Compensation targets:
$191,000–$240,000/yr
in Denver and most remote locations;
$225,000–$275,000/yr
in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. Stock equity is additional. Final offers depend on experience and may vary.
Office expectations: Gusto has offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees based in those locations are typically asked to work from the office 2–3 days per week (or more, depending on role). San Francisco office notes cover the SF and San Jose metro areas. Hybrid work requires a reliable internet connection on non-office days.
Gusto is an equal opportunity employer. We prohibit discrimination and provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans. For accommodations requests, please contact our team. Review our Applicant Privacy Notice for personal information collected during applications.
Additional
Seniority level: Mid-Senior level
Employment type: Full-time
Job function: Engineering and Information Technology
Industries: Software Development
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