Staff Software Engineer, Core Products

Gusto, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Gusto, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to develop and enhance customer-facing products that small businesses rely on. This role involves designing and building APIs, mentoring engineers, and working across teams to identify and solve customer pain points.

The ideal candidate has over 8 years of experience in software development, is passionate about creating customer experiences, and is eager to leverage AI tools to drive innovation.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software development experience.
• Curiosity and experimentation with AI frameworks.
• Experience owning multi-quarter projects.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and test Gusto core products.
• Mentor other engineers on complex technical problems.
• Collaborate with teams to understand customer pain points.

Skills

Software development experience

Building scalable solutions

Leveraging AI tools

Mentoring engineers

Collaboration skills

Job description

About the Role

We’re looking for seasoned full‑stack software engineers to join the teams behind Gusto’s customer‑facing products — the features and experiences that small business owners and their employees rely on every day.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you’ll operate across the full product lifecycle: shaping features from early spec and design through to launch and long‑term iteration. That means writing clean front‑end code, designing and building reliable back‑end APIs, influencing product direction, and taking ownership of what happens after a feature ships.

If you’re drawn to work that combines technical craft with real‑world impact — helping power the livelihoods of millions using Gusto products — join us!

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• Design, build, and test Gusto core products such as Payroll, Benefits, HR, Retirement, Gusto Money, Gusto Solo, and Gusto Pro , among others
• Mentor other engineers to help solve some of the hardest technical problems out there in very complex domains and at a large scale
• Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and JavaScript/React applications in the world
• Collaborate with our Product Management, Data, Design, and Platform Engineering teams to understand customer pain points, come up with solutions, and then prototype, iterate, and launch daily
• Build products that our customers genuinely love

Qualifications

• Successful applicants typically have 8+ years of software development experience
• Experience building scalable solutions that eliminate customer pain; passion for creating memorable experiences for customers
• Experience leveraging AI tools or systems to accelerate development, improve testing, and deliver new product capabilities
• Curiosity and experimentation with emerging AI frameworks , applying and sharing best practices to evaluate and scale AI use safely across teams
• Experience owning multi‑quarter projects that solve complex engineer