Head of AI Dev Tools & Autonomous Coding Platform

Gusto; Denver, New York, San Francisco (CO, NY, CA); Hybrid; USD 240,000 - 305,000; Full time

Job summary

Gusto is building AI Dev Tools to empower engineers with agentic coding environments and secure, scalable infrastructure. You will own the platform end-to-end from autonomy decisions to runtime isolation and vendor contracts.

This role focuses on leadership, strategy, and hands-on governance of AI-native software developments. You will work with a team of senior engineers, report to engineering leadership (CTO), and help shape how AI is integrated across Gusto’s platform.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering people leadership experience guiding senior engineers through ambiguous, fast-moving problems.
• Direct hands-on experience with agentic coding tools and platforms.
• Experience owning significant vendor or infrastructure contracts from requirements to procurement.
• Comfort making autonomy/risk tradeoff calls on AI systems without default security oversight.

Responsibilities

• Own the agentic coding roadmap and orchestration model for multi-step work across tools and channels.
• Lead the security posture and sandboxing/permission-scoping for autonomous coding agents.
• Define AI infrastructure spend guardrails and translate usage data into cost judgments.
• Recruit, mentor, and level a team of senior engineers; partner with CTO on strategy.
• Partner with engineering leadership on the direction of AI-native software development.

Skills

People leadership

Agentic coding tools

Vendor contracts

Security risk decisions

Strategic partnering

Executive stakeholder comms

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Codex

Job description

Gusto is building AI Dev Tools to empower engineers with agentic coding environments and secure, scalable infrastructure. You will own the platform end-to-end from autonomy decisions to runtime isolation and vendor contracts.

This role focuses on leadership, strategy, and hands-on governance of AI-native software developments. You will work with a team of senior engineers, report to engineering leadership (CTO), and help shape how AI is integrated across Gusto’s platform.