Staff Software Engineer (Core AI Platforms)

Gusto; York and North Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Gender-affirming care

Family care and support

Mental health resources

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Free meals and refreshments

Paid vacation and holidays

Job summary

Gusto is seeking seasoned staff software engineers to join the teams behind our product platforms—the shared systems our product teams build upon—to serve small business owners every day. As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll shape architecture early in design, build self-service internal features and APIs, and own performance long after launch.

You will mentor engineers, scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and JavaScript/React apps, collaborate with Product Engineering, Data and Design, and

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software development experience.
• Strong Ruby on Rails background with large-scale apps.
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading multi-quarter projects.
• Proven ability to own architecture and drive reliability.
• Interest in exploring AI tooling to accelerate development.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and test core platform services including backend APIs.
• Scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and JS/React apps.
• Mentor engineers and raise the team's technical capabilities.
• Collaborate with Product, Data and Design to solve customer pain points.

Skills

Ruby on Rails

JS/React

Architecture

Mentoring

Performance

Collaboration

AI frameworks

Ownership

Job description

• We’re looking for seasoned full-stack software engineers to join the teams behind Gusto’s product platforms — the shared systems that our product teams build upon — to serve small business owners every day
• As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll operate across the full lifecycle of foundational systems: shaping architecture early in the design process, building self-service internal features and APIs, and owning their performance long after launch
• That means engineering the core business engine, enabling product teams with reliable backend services, and setting the engineering standard for those around you
• Design, build, and test Gusto core platform services – communications, reporting, dashboards, access, workflows, risk, payments, and compliance capabilities, among others
• Mentor other engineers to help solve some of the hardest technical problems out there in very complex domains and at a large scale
• Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and Javascript/React applications in the world
• Collaborate with our Product Engineering, Product Management, Data, and Design teams to understand customer pain points, come up with solutions, and then prototype, iterate, and launch daily
• Build platforms that engineering teams rely on, and trust to deliver products that our customers genuinely love

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

If you’re drawn to work that combines technical craft with real-world impact — helping power the livelihoods of millions using Gusto products — join us!Passion for creating scalable, efficient platforms for usersCuriosity and experimentation with emerging AI frameworks, applying and sharing best practices to evaluate and scale AI use safely across teamsAbility to mentor engineers to maximize their performance and impactExperience with large scale refactors, performance and reliability issues, and a strong sense of ownership over all aspects of your platform areaExperience owning multi-quarter projects that solve complex engineering problems and make measurable user impact at scaleExperience leveraging AI tools or systems to accelerate development, improve testing, and deliver new platform capabilitiesSuccessful applicants typically have 8+ years of software development experienceExperience in, or interest working in, Ruby on RailsAppreciation for a collaborative, test-driven environmentAbility to build well-structured, maintainable, well-documented codeAbility to effectively communicate across engineering teams and with business stakeholders