Hybrid opportunity at
GustoSenior Staff Engineer - Tax Platform Engineering
Gusto provides an online platform that manages payroll, health benefits, 401(k) plans, and human resources for over half a million small businesses nationwide. The company operates…
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About This Role
Gusto provides an online platform that manages payroll, health benefits, 401(k) plans, and human resources for over half a million small businesses nationwide. The company operates offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York. Gusto is currently seeking a Senior Staff Engineer for its Tax Platform Engineering group in San Francisco. This hybrid position requires working from the San Francisco office approximately two to three days per week. The role…
Job Description
Gusto provides an online platform that manages payroll, health benefits, 401(k) plans, and human resources for over half a million small businesses nationwide. The company operates offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York.
Gusto is currently seeking a Senior Staff Engineer for its Tax Platform Engineering group in San Francisco. This hybrid position requires working from the San Francisco office approximately two to three days per week. The role suits an experienced engineer who wants to design, build, and scale core infrastructure that ensures accurate and timely payroll tax compliance for millions of users.
In this position, the engineer will steer projects end-to-end, defining technical strategies and roadmaps, prioritizing long-term architectural investments, and developing safety guardrails for agentic artificial intelligence applications. Day-to-day work involves collaborating with product management, design, data science, compliance, and operations teams to resolve intricate challenges, as well as mentoring peers and improving incident response protocols.
Responsibilities
- Design, construct, and test platform systems supporting tax compliance for millions of users
- Scale and optimize large Ruby, Rails, TypeScript, and React applications
- Partner with engineering, product, design, data science, compliance, and operations teams on complex problems
- Develop safety guardrails within the tax platform for agentic AI integration
- Define technical strategy and roadmaps aligned with team and group objectives
- Prioritize foundational system and architectural investments
- Enhance incident response procedures, tooling, and culture
- Mentor engineering staff and improve team capabilities through code reviews, pairing, and knowledge sharing
Requirements
- At least 10 years of professional software engineering experience
- Background in designing and building distributed systems with multiple programming languages
- Experience guiding multiple teams on scaling, refactoring, and optimizing legacy products
- Track record of architecting, constructing, and testing large-scale production code
- Ability to build structured, maintainable, and well-documented code
- Experience developing fault-tolerant and mission-critical software
- Familiarity with building products in regulated and high-risk domains
- Working knowledge of current artificial intelligence tools, large language models, and agents
Qualifications
- Prior experience working within payroll, taxes, or compliance domains
- Familiarity with Ruby on Rails, TypeScript, and React
Core Skills
Benefits
- Competitive base pay
- Stock equity in the form of Restricted Stock Units
- Comprehensive employee benefits
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the location and remote work policy for this role?
This position is based in San Francisco with a hybrid work schedule. Employees based in San Francisco are expected to work from the office approximately two to three days per week.
What is the employment type?
The position is a full-time role.
What is the salary range for this position?
The cash compensation for this role in San Francisco and New York is targeted at $223,000 to $278,000 per year, with stock equity offered in addition. Final offers depend on factors including candidate experience and expertise.
What level of experience is required?
Successful applicants must have at least 10 or more years of professional experience.
Sample Interview Questions
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