Sr Staff AI Software Engineer, Payroll

Gusto • Denver, CO;San Francisco, CA;New York, NY • 2d ago

About the Role:

We are looking for someone to help us accelerate our payroll mission via intelligent use and integration of conversational and agentic AI into the products that serve small and medium business owners and their teams. This person should not only be familiar with AI technologies, but should have experience applying them to enhance existing product experiences.

About the Team:

Payroll is the beating heart of Gusto’s business. Payroll Services teams are responsible for the product, ops, and service components Gusto uses to onboard customers, process payrolls, calculate taxes & deductions, pay and file with tax agencies, and maintain compliance on behalf of the customers. The domain is highly complex and offers the opportunity to engage in system design that simplifies this for customers, both internal and external.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

Deeply understand the customer journey—both on and off the Gusto platform—and identify high-impact opportunities to simplify, automate, and delight through AI.
Design and build multi-agent AI systems that collaborate effectively to automate key customer workflows and jobs to be done.
Partner closely with engineers, product managers, designers, and other cross-functional teams to bring innovative AI-powered experiences to life quickly.
Continuously iterate on AI-driven features to improve customer outcomes and drive measurable business impact.
Support Payroll and Tax teams in applying AI to build more intuitive, efficient, and delightful experiences for both internal and external users.

Here’s what we're looking for:

12+ years of software development experience
Expertise in Agentic AI, Machine Learning, and LLMs is essential. You should be considered an expert in this field and have applied it to existing products
Product-minded and thrives in creative problem-solving, seamlessly transitioning between engineering and product management roles to drive impactful solutions
An aptitude and interest in bringing clarity and simplicity to complex and ambiguous problems
Ability to communicate technical complexity and help facilitate informed tradeoffs
Experience building products in highly regulated domains is desired, but not required
Experience in one of these domains is desired but not required: Payroll, Taxes, or Compliance

Please note that travel to Gusto’s Denver 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 $191,000/yr to $237,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $225,000/yr to $279,000/yr for San Francisco, Seattle & 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.