Data Science Senior Manager

Gusto • Denver, CO;San Francisco, CA;New York, NY;Seattle, WA • 5d ago

Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs

This role stands out in the SaaS landscape because it sits at the intersection of product decision-making and operational scale. A Senior Manager leading a core Data Science product team in a multi-functional environment signals a company where analytics is embedded in how product bets are placed, measured, and refined. The remit spans product experience, business performance, and AI-native strategy, which reflects how modern SaaS companies increasingly treat data science as a first-class product capability rather than a reporting function.

From a SaaS career perspective, the long-term value is in building repeatable frameworks for measurement, experimentation, and metric governance across the customer lifecycle. Managing a team while remaining hands-on also develops the dual track many SaaS leaders need: technical credibility paired with influence across Product, Engineering, and go-to-market partners. Experience shaping how leaders interpret evidence and trade-offs transfers well across product-led and multi-product SaaS environments.

The position is best suited to professionals who enjoy translating ambiguous product questions into rigorous analyses, and who are comfortable coaching senior ICs while contributing directly when depth is required. It will fit someone motivated by cross-functional alignment and executive-facing communication, especially where AI tooling and experimentation are part of everyday decision systems.

The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.

Job Description

About the Role:

Gusto is looking for an experienced, hands-on people manager to lead a core Data Science product ateam. This role sits at the heart of how we use data to understand, shape, and scale Gusto’s products. You’ll both manage a team of data scientists as well as personally get in-the-weeds to work closely with Product, Engineering, Design, Marketing, Sales, and Finance to deliver insights and frameworks that inform strategy, optimize user experiences, and accelerate business growth.

We’re looking for a leader who can balance strategic influence with hands-on craft—someone who can guide senior Gusto leaders through AI-native data strategy, coach data scientists on impactful problem solving, and dive in to drive forward statistically rigorous analyses when needed.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

Lead and develop a team of data scientists: hire, empower, and coach team members; set a high bar for analytical quality and career growth.
Shape product and business strategy through data and AI: partner with Product and cross-functional leaders to identify opportunities, prioritize investments, and influence long-term product roadmaps.
Develop and scale measurement frameworks: define key metrics, design monitoring systems, and ensure product initiatives are rigorously tracked and evaluated through an AI-native lens
Support experimentation and decision-making: support inferential analyses and experimentation (e.g., A/B tests, segmentation, funnel analysis), ensuring findings are actionable and aligned to strategic goals.
Balance strategic and hands-on impact: dive deep into data, review and refine analyses, and ensure insights are both technically sound and business-relevant.
Influence senior leadership: communicate insights and recommendations clearly, framing trade-offs and shaping executive decision-making.
Strengthen the data craft at Gusto: champion AI-native ways of working, partner with Data Platform, Data Engineering, and ML Engineering to bring scalable, technical solutions to product problems; set team-level standards for analysis quality and documentation.

Here’s what we're looking for:

10+ years of experience in data science or related fields, with at least 4 years managing and scaling high-performing data science teams.
Deep expertise in product analytics – experience with user acquisition, activation, retention, engagement, or expansion in SaaS or product-led environments.
Technical fluency – advanced coding skills, practical experience with AI tools and workflows, strong statistical reasoning, and familiarity with experimentation frameworks; ability to mentor data scientists on best practices.
Strategic and business acumen – demonstrated ability to connect insights to product and business goals, and to influence roadmaps through data.
Executive communication skills – proven experience presenting insights to senior stakeholders, turning complex data into clear and actionable recommendations.
Cross-functional collaboration – history of working closely with Product, Engineering, and go-to-market teams to drive decisions and deliver impact.
Experience with ML applications in product contexts (e.g., personalization, churn prediction, customer segmentation) is a plus.
Familiarity with multi-product SaaS ecosystems and customer lifecycle analytics is desirable.

If you are passionate about using data to drive strategic decisions and help small businesses thrive, we'd love to hear from you!

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $181,000/yr - $216,000/yr in Denver and $219,000/yr - $255,000 for San Francisco, Seattle and New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

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