Principal Software Engineer (Pay Group Engineering)

Gusto; York and North Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Gender-affirming care and support

Family care and support

Mental health resources

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Free meals and refreshments at office

Paid vacation, sick time, holidays, or

Sabbatical and more

Job summary

Gusto is seeking seasoned software engineers to join multiple teams enhancing core payroll and tax systems. You will guide projects from specs to deployment and maintain code powering key experiences.

The role emphasizes scalable design and cross-team collaboration to deliver impact across the platform. Ideal candidates bring extensive experience in regulated domains, strong system design, and hands-on work with Ruby on Rails and TypeScript/React, plus a drive to mentor others and explore

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering in complex, regulated domains.
• Strong knowledge of data structures, data modeling, and system design.
• Experience leading cross-team initiatives and influencing product direction.
• Proficiency with Ruby on Rails and modern frontend frameworks (TypeScript/React).

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end projects by shaping initial feature specs and architecture.
• Maintain and scale core payroll and tax systems and related platform services.
• Mentor engineers and foster collaboration across Product, Design, Data Science and Compliance teams.
• Apply AI/ML advancements to build scalable, reliable solutions.

Skills

Ruby on Rails

TypeScript/React

System design

Mentoring

Cross-team collaboration

AI/ML awareness

Tools

Ruby on Rails

TypeScript

React

Job description

• 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 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
• If you’re interested in building elegant software with far-reaching effects in our modern economy, join us!
• 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
• The domain is highly complex and offers the opportunity to engage in system design that simplifies this for customers, both internal and external
• Tax Accuracy: The Tax Accuracy group is responsible for gathering and maintaining the necessary information for us to pay and file taxes accurately and on time for our customers, and consists of multiple teams that cover various parts of the process
• Ledger: This team is building a payroll ledger to track accrual accounting for payroll-related money movement
• This team is starting to support the payroll domain, risk, payments, and accounting
• Engine: This team works closely with the payroll compliance team to ensure enablement of compliant pay, such as minimum wage adjustments, regular rate of pay, etc
• We enable end-to-end success of payroll processing and working with various domain teams such as tax calculations, tax setup, payments, and more
• Platform: This team is developing a new platform to be the common interface for interacting with payroll and tax data
• The payroll and tax domain is highly complex; our team exists to make it easier for other application teams to interact with the payroll and tax system
• We enable application and experience teams to deliver customer value faster by providing a scalable, flexible, performant, and highly understandable platform to integrate with
• Function as a Technical Lead across multiple teams in Payroll Services, helping us keep engineers unblocked and deliver high-quality work supporting our long-term goals
• 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 partnerships from Engineering, Product Management, Design, Data Science, Compliance, Operations, and other cross-functional teams
• Mentor and grow fellow engineers working to create holistic and scalable solutions
• Drive the product development process from concept to launch, delivering delightful products that make payroll, taxes, and compliance simple and easy
• Improve the productivity and happiness of our teams with the services, tools, and APIs you build
• Engage in a highly supportive environment working with others to drive productivity and innovation
• Continuously stay up-to-date with advancements in AI and Machine Learning, applying this knowledge to our projects

Benefits

• Gender-affirming care and support
• Family care and support, including family planning and fertility benefits
• A variety of mental health resources
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents
• Free meals and refreshments at the office (conversation and community is an added bonus!)
• Paid vacation, sick time, bereavement, and holidays, paid leaves, sabbatical, and more

Experience in complex highly regulated domainsUnderstanding of how to evaluate AI-driven outputs using clear success criteriaExperience engineering, designing, building and supporting large scale systems in productionEnthusiasm for a collaborative, test-driven environmentA commitment to staying current on emerging backend technologies and AI frameworks and patterns, regularly experimenting with new approachesSuccessful applicants typically have at least 15+ years of experienceStrong knowledge of data structures, data modeling, and system designWillingness to contribute to shared tools or templates that enhance the speed and safety of AI experimentationAble to build maintainable, structured, well-documented codeExperience working on platform products which are depended upon throughout the companyExperience using AI tools to build, test, and iterate on products quicklyExperience working across 3+ teams, influencing both product and team directionExperience operationalizing and scaling large interconnected production systemsAn aptitude in bringing clarity and simplicity to complex problems, communicating technical complexity and facilitating informed tradeoffs to major stakeholdersExamples: HR, Payroll, Taxes, or Compliance