Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Platform engineering roles matter in SaaS because they determine how quickly product teams can ship and how safely core workflows run at scale. This Staff Software Engineer position sits in the shared systems layer behind a mature product platform, spanning capabilities like workflows, reporting, access, payments, and compliance. The scope signals work in a complex, multi-domain SaaS environment where internal APIs and self-service tooling are as critical as end-user features.
From a SaaS career perspective, the role builds durable expertise in designing and operating foundational services over long horizons, including performance, reliability, and large refactors. It also offers practical exposure to cross-functional product development rhythms, where engineering decisions are tied to customer pain points and measurable outcomes. The emphasis on applying AI tools and emerging frameworks adds a modern platform dimension that translates across SaaS organizations exploring safe, scalable adoption.
This role tends to fit engineers who prefer leverage over surface area: improving systems that many teams depend on rather than owning a single feature vertical. It also suits someone comfortable setting technical direction, mentoring peers, and taking responsibility for multi-quarter initiatives, especially in established codebases such as large Ruby on Rails and JavaScript applications.
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:
We're looking for seasoned full-stack software engineers to join the teams behind Gusto's product platforms — the shared systems that our product teams build upon — to serve small business owners every day.
As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll operate across the full lifecycle of foundational systems: shaping architecture early in the design process, building self-service internal features and APIs, and owning their performance long after launch. That means engineering the core business engine, enabling product teams with reliable backend services, and setting the engineering standard for those around you.
If you're drawn to work that combines technical craft with real-world impact — helping power the livelihoods of millions using Gusto products — join us!
Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:
- Design, build, and test Gusto core platform services – communications, reporting, dashboards, access, workflows, risk, payments, and compliance capabilities, among others
- Mentor other engineers to help solve some of the hardest technical problems out there in very complex domains and at a large scale
- Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and Javascript/React applications in the world
- Collaborate with our Product Engineering, Product Management, Data, and Design teams to understand customer pain points, come up with solutions, and then prototype, iterate, and launch daily
Here’s what we're looking for:
- Successful applicants typically have 8+ years of software development experience
- Passion for creating scalable, efficient platforms for users
- Experience leveraging AI tools or systems to accelerate development, improve testing, and deliver new platform capabilities
- Curiosity and experimentation with emerging AI frameworks, applying and sharing best practices to evaluate and scale AI use safely across teams
- Experience owning multi-quarter projects that solve complex engineering problems and make measurable user impact at scale
- Experience with large scale refactors, performance and reliability issues, and a strong sense of ownership over all aspects of your platform area
- Ability to mentor engineers to maximize their performance and impact
Others:
- Experience in, or interest working in, Ruby on Rails
- Appreciation for a collaborative, test-driven environment
- Ability to build well-structured, maintainable, well-documented code
- Ability to effectively communicate across engineering teams and with business stakeholders
Do you prefer heavy feature development instead? Check out our Staff Software Engineer, Core Products job listing.
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.
