Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure

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

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (RSUs)

Job summary

Gusto is seeking an experienced software engineer to own backend services and APIs for our retirement money movement systems. You will ship production code, handle real financial edge cases, and collaborate with product, compliance, and operations to deliver reliable, scalable solutions.

The role emphasizes end-to-end ownership, strong API design, and mentoring other engineers in a fast-paced, security‑minded environment that serves 500,000+ small businesses nationwide.

Qualifications

• Eight+ years of software engineering experience
• Experience with payments or financial systems
• Strong API and backend service design
• Comfort owning end-to-end system delivery and production support
• Proven collaboration with PMs and cross-functional partners
• Clear, collaborative communicator with mentoring skills

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and ship services and APIs for money movement and financial integrations
• Own backend services and production code for payroll-related systems
• Work on payments, settlements, reconciliation, and corrections involving real customer funds
• Develop workflows such as payroll integration, KYB/KYC, 401k loans, billing, and IRA
• Partner with product, compliance, and operations to scope work and deliver production-ready solutions
• Debug production issues and improve reliability, observability, and tooling
• Mentor other engineers to tackle complex problems at scale
• Write clear, well-tested code that ships quickly and scales

Skills

Software engineering

Payments

APIs

Ruby on Rails

Mentoring

Tools

PostgreSQL

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:

You’ll be a key engineer focused on building and owning the systems that move money and assets through Gusto Retirement. This is a very hands‑on role: owning backend services and APIs end‑to‑end, shipping production code, and working through real financial edge cases. You’ll partner closely with product, compliance, and operations to turn complex financial requirements into reliable software. If you like working on core systems where correctness matters and enjoy getting things shipped, you’ll be a great fit.

About the Team:

The Financial Infrastructure team owns the core money and asset flow systems for Gusto Retirement. We’re a senior team that works on payments, settlements, tax and compliance integrations, and much more. The work is complex and often cross‑functional, so we stay focused, collaborate closely, and keep tight ownership of what we build. We work closely with product and partner teams, but we’re responsible for execution and reliability end‑to‑end.

Here’s what you’ll do day‑to‑day:

• Design, build, and ship services and APIs for money movement and financial integrations
• Work on payments, settlements, reconciliation, and corrections involving real customer funds
• Build and support critical workflows like payroll integration, KYB/KYC, 401k loans, billing and invoicing, and IRA
• Partner with product, compliance, and operations to scope work and deliver production‑ready solutions
• Debug production issues and improve reliability, observability, and operational tooling
• Collaborate with other engineering teams to integrate with shared systems and platforms
• Mentor other engineers to help solve some of the hardest technical problems out there in very complex domains and at a large scale
• Write clear, reliable, well‑tested code that ships quickly and scales well
• Build a product that our customers genuinely love

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production products or platforms
• Strong experience with services, APIs, and data‑heavy workflows.
• Experience working on financial systems, payments, or other high‑correctness domains (or the ability to ramp quickly).
• Comfortable owning systems end‑to‑end, including production support and operational work.
• Experience working closely with PMs and cross‑functional partners to deliver scoped work.
• Pragmatic, execution‑focused approach to engineering.
• Clear communicator and collaborative teammate.
• Ability to mentor engineers to maximize their performance and impact
• Experience with Ruby on Rails (or a comparable backend framework).

Bonus Points:

• 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.

Please note that travel to Gusto's 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 $163,000–$204,000 in Denver & most remote locations, and $197,000–$247,000 for San Francisco & 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. 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.