Staff Software Engineer, Tax Experiences

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

Benefits offered by this job

Stock equity

Hybrid work model

Office in SF

Job summary

Gusto is building the tax and compliance experience for millions of small businesses. We’re seeking an senior software engineer to own the design, development, and testing of tax-related workflows across payroll, taxes, and filings.

You’ll collaborate with product, design, data science, and compliance teams, mentor peers, and drive scalable solutions while applying AI tools to streamline customer workflows. This role requires strong React/TypeScript skills and backend experience.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Expertise in React and TypeScript with backend experience (Ruby on Rails or SQL).
• Experience handling large codebases and incremental improvements.
• Ability to simplify complex problems and communicate clearly.
• Experience applying AI tools to accelerate development.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, build, and test of tax-related user experiences.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align with OKRs and roadmap.
• Mentor engineers and drive scalable solutions.
• Deliver products that simplify payroll, taxes, and compliance.
• Apply AI-native approaches to product decisions and workflows.

Skills

React

TypeScript

Ruby on Rails

SQL

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.

About the Team

We’re a small group of talented engineers, designers, data scientists, and product managers working to improve the experience of collecting, calculating, paying, and filing taxes. Our team aims to make the complexity of dealing with hundreds of tax agencies disappear and to make compliance easy. We own everything a customer sees and does around taxes: from onboarding through ongoing account management, payments, and filings. We make communication about those experiences clear and actionable, and the underlying systems are reasonable and sustainable.

Responsibilities

• Execute on the technical strategy for your team's domain in alignment with team and group-level OKRs, and contribute to the broader Tax Engineering roadmap through collaboration.
• Design, build, and test the experience that enables people to add and update their tax information at Gusto.
• Advocate for the needs of our customers, employers and employees who rely on Gusto to ensure their taxes are collected, calculated, and filed correctly.
• Collaborate on complex and ambiguous problems with partners across Engineering, Product Management, Design, Data Science, Compliance, Operations, and other cross‑functional teams.
• Support the software platform that powers multiple first‑ and third‑party products and serves millions of businesses.
• Mentor and grow fellow engineers working to create holistic and scalable solutions.
• Drive the product development process from concept to launch, delivering delightful products that make payroll, taxes, and compliance simple and easy.
• Improve the productivity and happiness of our teams with the design systems, components, and interfaces you build.
• Engage in a highly supportive environment working with others to drive productivity and innovation.
• Identify and prioritize long‑term investments to improve foundational systems and architecture.
• Apply AI tools as a regular part of your engineering workflow, bringing an AI‑native lens to product decisions: identify where AI can reduce customer effort, simplify complex tax workflows, and surface proactive guidance before customers know they need it.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with expertise in React and TypeScript, as well as experience with Ruby on Rails, SQL, or other backend languages.
• Experience in one of these domains is preferred: Payroll, Taxes, or Compliance.
• Experience working in large, complex codebases and a demonstrated ability to improve them incrementally without breaking things.
• An aptitude and interest in bringing clarity and simplicity to complex and ambiguous problems.
• Experience applying AI tools to accelerate development, improve code quality, and build testing; familiar with AI‑assisted development workflows.
• A preference for working collaboratively with people, not in a silo; pairing, thought partnership, and shared investigation feel natural.
• Able to communicate technical complexity clearly to product and design partners, and help the team navigate tradeoffs with full context.
• Strong systems thinking: the ability to build mental models of unfamiliar systems, ask the right questions, and produce clear analysis that others can act on.

Additional Requirements

Please note that a two‑day travel to a Gusto office for onboarding is required for this position. If you have any questions regarding this requirement, please share them with your recruiter.

Compensation

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $163,000–$204,000 in Denver and most remote locations, and $197,000–$247,000 for San Francisco and 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.

Office Attendance

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. When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required for hybrid employees.

EEO Statement

Gusto is a proud 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 any other 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. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out the form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.