Staff Software Engineer, AI Security

Gusto; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 181,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Gusto is hiring a Staff Backend Software Engineer for the Product & AI Security Engineering team. You will own security foundations behind Gusto’s products and AI/LLM experiences, including authentication, authorization, and data handling, while building guardrails for other teams.

You’ll design and operate scalable security platforms, collaborate across product, platform, and AI teams, and lead efforts to reduce risk and improve safety for customers.

Qualifications

• Strong backend software engineering skills with clean, scalable, well-tested code.
• Experience building highly available distributed services at scale.
• Ability to partner cross-functionally and communicate tradeoffs clearly.
• Genuine interest and eagerness to grow in security domain.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate authentication and authorization systems that scale.
• Strengthen core services and data protections, including access control and APIs.
• Detect and mitigate account takeover and abuse to improve customer safety.
• Build security platforms and tooling to accelerate product and AI teams.
• Own high-availability security and identity services used by other teams.
• Tackle AI/LLM security problems from threat modeling to mitigations.
• Provide leadership in security engineering practices.

Skills

Backend engineering

Secure distributed systems

Security tooling

APIs

AI coding tools

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

SAST

DAST

SIEM

SCA

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

We’re hiring a Staff Backend Software Engineer for our Product & AI Security Engineering team. You’ll own and evolve the security foundations behind Gusto’s products and AI/LLM experiences—from authentication and authorization at scale to securing core services and data. You'll define and own security architecture and standards across Gusto's products and AI/LLM experiences — setting the direction for authentication, authorization, and safe data handling, and building the platforms and guardrails that other teams rely on.

About the Team

The Product & AI Security Engineering team sits at the intersection of product, platform, and AI at Gusto. We prioritize high‑leverage projects that reduce risk, harden our foundations, and unlock faster delivery for other teams. We build security tools and services, embed with partner teams when needed, and set best practices for authentication, authorization, and safe data handling—especially as we adopt AI and LLMs.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day

• Design, build, and operate authentication and authorization systems that work at Gusto scale.
• Strengthen core services and data protections, including access control, storage, and APIs.
• Detect and mitigate account takeover and other abuse, improving safety for our customers.
• Build security platforms and tooling that help product and AI teams move quickly and safely.
• Own and improve high-availability security and identity services that other teams depend on.
• Tackle ambiguous AI/LLM security problems from threat modeling to practical mitigations.
• Provide leadership in promoting security and software engineering excellence.

Here’s what we’re looking for

• 10+ years of experience as a backend engineer, building and operating large-scale server-side services and APIs
• Proven track record building secure, highly available distributed systems and services.
• Hands‑on experience with modern security tooling and practices (e.g., SAST, DAST, SIEM, SCA).
• Proficiency in one or more of: Ruby, Python, Kotlin, JavaScript/TypeScript
• Experience with AI tools for coding (ex: Cloud Code, Cursor, Github Copilot)
• Strong collaboration skills and comfort breaking down complex, cross‑cutting security and AI problems into clear, practical solutions.

Required

• Strong backend software engineering skills — you write clean, scalable, well-tested code
• Experience building and operating high‑availability services at scale
• Ability to partner cross‑functionally and communicate technical tradeoffs clearly
• Genuine interest and desire to grow within the security domain — you don't need to have worked in security before, but you're excited to get started.

Nice to have

• Experience with authorization platforms/policy engines (e.g., Open Policy Agent, SpiceDB) and technologies like GraphQL, gRPC, Kubernetes, Terraform, Traefik, Flask, Okta.
• Experience with authentication and authorization, such as SAML/SSO, RBAC, and ABAC.
• Familiarity with security concepts like access control, abuse detection, or data protection
• Prior work on security tooling or platforms

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $181,000-215,000 in Denver & most remote locations, and $218,94-260,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and NYC. 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. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

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.

Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer.

Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice.