Senior Staff Software Engineer, Payments

Gusto; Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, Denver (TX, GA, CA, NY, CO); Hybrid; USD 191,000 - 225,000; Full time

Job summary

Gusto is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to lead the Payments team and enhance payment capabilities for small businesses across the U.S. With a focus on building and improving robust systems, you'll collaborate with cross-functional teams while ensuring timely payments for clients. Ideal candidates will have a strong background in software engineering within the fintech sector and experience in mentoring others. Join us to make a meaningful impact in the lives of thousands of small business employees.

Benefits

Health insurance

401(k) matching

Flexible work hours

Collaborative work environment

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering with fintech focus.
• Expertise in building and maintaining financial data infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of accounting principles.

Responsibilities

• Act as Technical Lead for projects within the Payments team.
• Design and build scalable financial data platforms.
• Mentor engineers and support the team's long-term technical direction.

Skills

Fintech experience

System architecture

Full-stack web app experience

Mentoring

Working with cross-functional teams

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Ruby on Rails

TypeScript

Financial data systems

Job description

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Payments

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools. Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 400,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy .

About the Role:

Gusto moves hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The Sr. Staff Engineer will be part of the Payments team and will be responsible for a.) building new payments and money movement capabilities across US and International, and b.) (re)architecting our payments platform to scale for the future. 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. You’ll collaborate with a talented cross-functional team of Product, Design, and Data partners, focusing on building payments experiences that delight customers. If you’re interested in building elegant software with far-reaching effects in our modern economy, join us!

About the Team

This role is part of the Payments team at Gusto that ensures that our 400,000+ small and medium businesses and millions of their employees are getting paid on time, every time. You will be developing our payments systems that are foundational to the payment solutions offered by Gusto.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Act as a Technical Lead, supporting and unblocking engineers while contributing to long-term technical direction
• Design and build financial data platforms, including Gusto’s internal ledger and reconciliation systems
• Develop and maintain scalable, high-quality backend and frontend components of our customer-facing Payment Profile
• Partner with Accounting and Product teams to create tools that support billing, compliance, and transparency
• Help scale one of the largest Ruby on Rails and TypeScript/React applications in the world
• Mentor and grow engineers across multiple domains and technical levels
• Drive projects from concept to launch, focusing on clarity, simplicity, and accuracy in financial and product systems
• Write maintainable, well-documented, and test-driven code

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 12+ years of experience building large-scale software systems, with significant experience in fintech, accounting, or enterprise software
• Experience building or maintaining internal ledgering systems, reconciliation tools, or financial data infrastructure
• Familiarity with accounting principles and close collaboration with accounting or finance stakeholders
• Strong full-stack web app experience (70% backend, 30% frontend), including customer-facing product development
• Deep knowledge of data structures, modeling, and system architecture for mission-critical platforms
• A track record of engineering excellence and thoughtful tradeoffs in complex system design
• Passion for creating clarity and simplicity in technically complex domains
• Enthusiasm for mentoring and collaboration in a highly cross-functional environment

Please note that travel to Gusto’s Denver office for onboarding is required for this position.If you have any questions regarding this requirement, please share with your recruiter.

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $191,000/yr to $225,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $225,000/yr to $265,000/yr for San Francisco, Seattle & New York. Stock equity is additional. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

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.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.

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