Product Designer, HR Experiences

The Wrap; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 146,000 - 222,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (RSUs)

Benefits

Total Rewards

Job summary

Gusto, a payroll and HR platform, is seeking a Product Designer for its HRX team to shape AI-native experiences end to end for small businesses.

You will collaborate with product, engineering, data, and design to ensure judgments on AI outputs are responsible and backed by two-sided journeys and clear handoffs.

Join a team that values craft and impact, working across design, product, and AI governance to deliver trusted experiences.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of product design experience in a B2B SaaS environment.
• Experience designing AI-enabled or conversational experiences shipped to real users.
• Experience in service design for products with two sides or multiple stakeholders.
• Judgment to evaluate and direct AI outputs, knowing when to override.
• Well-developed collaboration across design, product, engineering, and data.

Responsibilities

• Shape AI-native HR experiences end to end — where the customer says what they need and the product delivers the right outcome.
• Lead service design across a two-sided experience — journey mapping and blueprinting the routing and handoffs between customer, AI, and human experts.
• Make and defend judgment calls about AI outputs — when to ship, when to keep a human in the loop, and when not to ship.
• Ground the work in a specific customer and maintain a high craft bar from strategy through pixel-level execution.
• Partner with PM, engineering, and data as a co-owner of product direction.
• Work in fast cycles: set a target, ship real things to customers, and learn to sharpen the direction.
• Conduct and direct research with customers and HR experts to validate decisions in a high-stakes domain.

Skills

Product design

B2B SaaS

AI-enabled experiences

Service design

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

About Gusto

At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve.

All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process.

About the Role:

At Gusto, HR Experiences (HRX) helps small businesses get expert HR help right inside the product. Instead of hunting through forms and menus — or Googling what the law requires — a customer can simply say what they need, and Gusto does the rest: taking the action, answering the question, or bringing in a human expert when the stakes are high.

As a Product Designer on HRX, you'll shape these AI-native experiences end to end, in a domain where getting it right builds real trust — and getting it wrong has real consequences for our customers. That's exactly why judgment, taste, and craft matter here in a way they don't in lower-stakes products.

About the Team:

HRX is building the guidance and service layer that turns HR from a source of tension into a source of confidence for small businesses. We design across the full experience — the everyday self-serve moments, the AI that guides and does the work, and the human HR experts who step in when it matters most — so it all feels like one Gusto.

Gusto Design is operating in an AI-native way, and HRX is one of the teams fostering that hardest. We expect designers here to bring AI fluency in two directions:

• AI in your workflow. Using AI to explore ideas, prototype, and synthesize research — so you progress faster without losing craft.
• AI in the product. Designing the experience of AI outputs — representing uncertainty, surfacing errors gracefully, preserving user agency when a recommendation conflicts with best practice, and knowing when a human should step in.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Shape AI-native HR experiences end to end — where the customer says what they need and the product delivers the right outcome, without exposing the underlying complexity.
• Lead service design across a two-sided experience — journey mapping and blueprinting the routing and handoffs between the customer, the AI, and human HR experts.
• Make and defend judgment calls about AI outputs — when they're ready to ship, when to keep a human in the loop, and when they shouldn't ship at all — designing for failure so trust holds in the hard moments.
• Ground the work in a specific customer and hold a high craft bar from strategy through pixel-level execution.
• Partner with PM, engineering, and data as a co-owner of product direction — framing ambiguous problems early and spearheading clarity when the picture isn't yet clear.
• Work in fast cycles: set a clear target for an experience, ship real things to customers, and let what you learn sharpen the direction.
• Conduct and direct research with customers and HR experts to validate decisions in a high-stakes, compliance-sensitive domain.

Here’s what we're looking for:

What you’ll need:

• 6+ years of product design experience owning and shipping work in a B2B SaaS environment, with robust craft across web.
• Experience designing AI-enabled or conversational experiences shipped to real users — and you can speak concretely to how you handled uncertainty, errors, and human override.
• Experience in service design for products with two sides or multiple stakeholders. You should have real journey mapping and blueprinting experience. This includes operational handoffs and should not be limited to workshop exercises.
• Judgment to evaluate and direct AI outputs — knowing when to use them, when to override them, and how to raise the bar — especially where the cost of being wrong is high.
• Comfort with ambiguity — you frame the problem, scope the work, and proceed forward without waiting for perfect information.
• Well-developed collaboration and communication across design, product, engineering, and data.

Bonus points

• Experience in a high-stakes or regulated domain — HR, compliance, fintech, legal, or healthcare.
• Helped lead a team's shift to AI-native workflows, and can speak to what changed about the work itself, not just the tools.
• Background contributing to AI governance, evaluation practices, or AI experience design patterns.
• Experience designing for internal or expert users (advisors, agents, support staff) alongside customer-facing surfaces.

Compensation Details

At Gusto, we strive to provide rewards that empower employees to achieve their financial and personal goals. We offer competitive compensation packages with a strong emphasis on equity based compensation (ownership in Gusto). To learn more about Gusto’s compensation philosophy and benefits offerings please view our Total Rewards Approach page.

Our cash compensation range for this role is $146,000/yr to $183,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $177,000/yr to $222,000/yr in San Francisco, Seattle & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

At Gusto, we don't use titles the traditional way, as a signal of rank or hierarchy. Instead, our titles describe two things at once — your craft (what you do, e.g. Engineering, Design) and your scope of ownership (what you're accountable for) — which is why you’ll see something like "Head of X" instead of a rank word like "Director" that tells you neither. Because of this, the title on this posting may look different from what you'd expect based on the scope and seniority of the role, and from how similar roles are typically titled elsewhere. If you have questions about how this role compares to your current title or level, your recruiter can help translate.

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

Reliable, consistent presence:

We expect regular and predictable attendance, whether you're working in‑office, hybrid, or fully remote, so that you stay