R&D Insights and Operations - Growth

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. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy . AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process. About the Role: We're looking for a builder to help construct a world class Growth organization. This is an opinionated leader that is motivated by creating big picture vision and digging into where the biggest opportunities are, sizing them, and building the systems, rigor, and connective tissue that let Growth and GTM operate cohesively. This is a member of Gusto's Insights & Operations (I&O) team — our internal Strategy/BizOps function — embedded against Growth, partnering closely with our Head of Growth and our CRO-side GTM leadership. This role is intentionally IC-first. You'll start by going deep on the highest-leverage problems in Growth, build a point of view grounded in data, and drive it to outcome. As trust and scope grow, this role is expected to expand — most likely into owning the operating bridge between Growth and our broader go-to-market organization, and potentially into building and leading a small team. About the Team: Gusto's Growth organization is on an ambitious trajectory: we're building toward a much more self-serve-led motion, and the opportunity ahead is significant. As Growth scales, we have a chance to be much more intentional about how it connects to Product and to our go-to-market teams (sales, demand gen, expansion sales, pricing, etc) — building a shared, prioritized roadmap and clear visibility into dependencies from the ground up, rather than retrofitting it later. Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day: Identify and size the highest-leverage opportunities for Growth: go from a fuzzy problem to a clear-eyed analysis of the opportunity, a recommendation on whether to pursue it, and a plan if the answer is yes. Anchor on problems, not headcount: dig into what's actually slowing the Growth organization down, define how to build a best in class engine, size the opportunity, and decide what's worth solving before proposing who or what is needed — not the reverse. Build the operating rhythm for Growth and drive execution against it: planning cycles, prioritization, and a shared, prioritized roadmap that makes trade-offs and dependencies visible across Growth R&D, Product R&D, and GTM. Bring real analytical rigor to how Growth invests — attribution, LTV, and testing/experimentation discipline — so decisions about where to deploy resources are tied clearly to business impact. Close the gap between Growth R&D and go-to-market: build the mechanisms (shared roadmap, dependency tracking, decision forums) that let both orgs operate as one team working toward the same number, rather than two orgs trading requests. Design an operating system anchored in technology vs. humans: build the muscle and mechanisms the Growth org can through automation, and hand off ownership once a system is running Act as a trusted advisor to Growth leadership: pressure-test strategy, surface risks and blind spots early, and bring an opinionated point of view, not just facilitation. Use AI as a default, not an add-on: build reusable, AI-powered workflows for planning, synthesis, and reporting so m