Staff Backend Engineer – Payroll Canada (Ruby/GraphQL)

The Wrap; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 197,000 - 247,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base pay

Equity (RSUs)

Benefits

Job summary

Gusto is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for the Payroll Canada team. This role focuses on building core payroll capabilities for Canada, largely from scratch, with backend emphasis and full-stack components where needed.

You will own complex problems end-to-end, design and evolve services, and collaborate with Product, Platform, and Compliance teams. Experience with Ruby is preferred.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with a backend focus.
• Experience applying AI tools to accelerate development and testing.
• Ability to work in large, complex codebases and improve incrementally.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain backend services powering Canadian payroll on Rails.
• Connect backend to frontend via GraphQL APIs with frontend teams.
• Own a primary domain in Payroll Canada and ensure correctness and scalability.
• Collaborate across Product, Design, Data, Compliance and Operations.
• Drive architecture documents balancing delivery with long-term goals.
• Leverage AI-assisted tools to speed development and improve quality.

Skills

Backend development

Full-stack development

AI-assisted development

Ruby

GraphQL

System design

Cross-functional collaboration

Code quality & testing

Tools

Ruby on Rails

GraphQL API

Job description

Gusto is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for the Payroll Canada team. This role focuses on building core payroll capabilities for Canada, largely from scratch, with backend emphasis and full-stack components where needed.

You will own complex problems end-to-end, design and evolve services, and collaborate with Product, Platform, and Compliance teams. Experience with Ruby is preferred.