Staff Engineer, PEO Growth — Own the Onboarding Journey

Gusto, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 163,000 - 247,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (RSUs)

Job summary

Gusto is building a PEO growth product—a co-employer service handling payroll, benefits, workers' compensation, and HR compliance. As a Staff Engineer on PEO Growth, you will own the onboarding path from discovery to full setup, shaping how a small business adopts one of the company’s most consequential products.

You’ll influence cross-team design, apply AI-enabled tooling, and drive high-quality, scalable experiences across markets with ownership and fast iteration at the core.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with customer-facing product surfaces in a large production codebase.
• Full-stack expertise: server-side and frontend; Rails/React/TypeScript are desirable but depth matters more.
• AI fluency: you use AI tooling in daily engineering work and can discuss where it helps or not.
• High ownership in ambiguity: turn fuzzy business needs into buildable solutions and ship.
• Strong collaborator and influencer across team boundaries with a track record of uplifting others.
• Bonus: growth experience—funnels, conversion, or product configuration.
• Bachelor's degree in CS or related field or equivalent experience.

Responsibilities

• Own the PEO Onboarding experience end to end — from discovery to full setup.
• Set technical direction: turn ambiguous bets into designs, sequencing, and durable abstractions.
• Build in a regulated domain prioritizing quality and accuracy.
• Partner across app teams to unify the journey and manage ownership seams.
• Use AI to assist coding, reviews, and onboarding, embedding AI guidance.

Skills

AI fluency

Full-stack development

Ownership in ambiguity

Cross-team collaboration

Product-surface ownership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Ruby on Rails

React/TypeScript

Job description

Gusto is building a PEO growth product—a co-employer service handling payroll, benefits, workers' compensation, and HR compliance. As a Staff Engineer on PEO Growth, you will own the onboarding path from discovery to full setup, shaping how a small business adopts one of the company’s most consequential products.

You’ll influence cross-team design, apply AI-enabled tooling, and drive high-quality, scalable experiences across markets with ownership and fast iteration at the core.