Staff Recruiter, Design & Specialized Tech

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: Our designers are builders, and the direction the business is heading has elevated the bar for who we are and who we hire. This role brings in that builder-minded design talent across Product Design, Design Systems, Content Design, UX Research, Service Design, Brand Studio and Creative, and Design Operations. We're looking for a Staff Design Recruiter who brings the versatility and eagerness to flex into Product Management, Data, or other technical hiring areas. What will make you successful in this role: You’ve recruited designers as your specialty. You are comfortable talking craft with senior design leaders, and you already have a network and presence in the design community. You’re an AI-fluent talent advisor. You leverage AI to shape search strategy, surface the market truth, and push back with evidence while balancing the true needs of the business. You don't just use AI, you build the agents and skills that carry that advisory judgment to the whole team, so everyone moves further together. You’re always on. To you, talent acquisition and relationship management are one and the same. You consistently find bar raisers and nurture relationships long before there's an open requisition. About the Team: SpecTech is the "specialized tech" recruiting team inside Gusto's Invite (talent acquisition) org. We hire builders who are responsible for Gusto's product, particularly Designers, Product Managers and Data professionals. We don't just fill requisitions. We're talent advisors who partner closely with hiring leaders on requisition-based searches, work sourcing-first, and are data driven. We move fast, default to warmth, and hold ourselves to a high bar on candidate experience because we believe that how someone is treated in our process is part of the Gusto product experience. Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day: Recruiting end to end. You run specialized, req-based searches from pre-search strategy through offer acceptance, across levels and craft areas. You uphold a high bar for recruiting craft. Talent advisory. You run tailored outbound and build bar-raiser pipelines from the start, mapping the market as you go. You turn what you learn into calibration sessions, data-backed recommendations, and clear trade-offs on factors like level, location, and comp, so hiring leaders can make informed decisions. Work cross-functionally to achieve the goal. You build working relationships across Compensation, People Partners, Executive Operations and Candidate Experience and you know who to pull in and when, so work doesn't sit waiting. Guide candidates through an experience that resonates. High touch, honest, and caring, held to real SLAs, so people leave feeling seen, heard, and cared for, whether or not they get an offer. Build with AI, not just use it. You leverage AI to give yourself superpowers across top-of-funnel sourcing, market analysis, and the entire interview process, so your human touch lands where it matters most. You build new AI-enabled approaches, test new t