Staff Software Engineer, HR Experience

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 Owns full-stack features independently — from technical design through implementation, testing, and production monitoring — with light oversight. What you'll do • Design, build, and maintain features for the HRX Engineering (HR Experience) product surface • Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code across the stack • Participate in code review, sprint planning, and retros • Partner with product and design to translate requirements into technical solutions • Help monitor and improve the reliability, performance, and quality of shipped features • Participate in on-call rotation and lead incident response for owned systems • Provide technical guidance and code-review mentorship to less-tenured engineers What we're looking for • 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including full-stack work • Demonstrated ability to design, build, and ship features spanning frontend, backend, and data layer with minimal oversight • Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend language/framework (e.g., Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Python/Django) and one modern frontend framework (e.g., React, TypeScript) • Solid understanding of relational databases — schema design, migrations, and query performance • Comfortable owning a project end-to-end: scoping, technical design, implementation, testing, deployment, and monitoring • Strong grounding in software engineering fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, automated testing, CI/CD • Experience partnering cross-functionally with product managers, designers, and other engineers • Clear written and verbal communication, including technical design docs Nice to have • Experience in HR tech, payroll, or fintech domains • Experience designing REST or GraphQL APIs • Exposure to accessibility (a11y) best practices Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $197,000–$247,000 for New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above. At Gusto, we don't use titles the traditional way, as a signal of rank or hierarchy. Instead, our titles describe two things at once — your craft (what you do, e.g. Engineering, Design) and your scope of ownership (what you're accountable for) — which is why you'll see something like "Head of X" instead of a rank word like "Director" that tells you neither. Because of this, the title on this posting may look different from what you'd expect based on the scope and seniority of the role, and from how similar roles are typically titled elsewhere. If you have questions about how this role compares to your current title or level, your recruiter can help translate. Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Sco