Principal Software Engineer, Gusto
Payroll Services
$215-280k
Salary dependent on candidate's location
2-3 days a week in office
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
Open for applications
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$215-280k
Salary dependent on candidate's location
2-3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To create a world where work empowers a better life.
Role
Who you are
- Successful applicants typically have at least 15 years of experience
- Experience influencing/guiding the work of multiple teams on projects
- Experience architecting, building, and testing large-scale distributed systems
- Experience as a technical lead, overseeing the work of multiple teams on projects
- An aptitude and interest in bringing clarity and simplicity to complex and ambiguous problems
- Experience operationalizing and scaling large interconnected production systems
- Ability to communicate technical complexity and help facilitate informed tradeoffs
- Enthusiasm for a collaborative, test-driven environment
- Able to build maintainable, structured, well-documented code
Desirable
- Experience in one of these would be nice, but not required:
- HR, Payroll, Payments, Fintech, or Tax products
- AI/Machine Learning
What the job involves
- We’re hiring seasoned engineers to join our teams that work on core platform capabilities, improving our existing systems for extensibility and scalability, and building the future of Gusto's Payroll system.
- As a Gusto Software Engineer at this level, you’ll be guiding projects end-to-end by influencing initial feature specs, understanding how to take existing systems closer to desired end states, executing on projects, and maintaining code that powers core experiences
- Payroll Services teams are responsible for the product, ops, and service components Gusto uses to onboard customers, process payrolls, calculate taxes & deductions, pay and file with tax agencies, and maintain compliance on behalf of the customers.
- The domain is highly complex and offers the opportunity to engage in system design that simplifies this for customers, both internal and external
- Design, build, and test the foundation that supports compliant payroll for millions of people
- Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and TypeScript/React applications in the world
- Collaborate on complex and ambiguous problems with partnerships from Engineering, Product Management, Design, Data Science, Compliance, Operations, and other cross-functional teams
- Build the software platform that powers multiple 1st and 3rd party products and serves millions of businesses
- Mentor and grow fellow engineers working to create holistic and scalable solutions
- Drive the product development process from concept to launch, delivering delightful products that make payroll, taxes, and compliance simple and easy
- Improve the productivity and happiness of our teams with the services, tools, and APIs you build
- Engage in a highly supportive environment working with others to drive productivity and innovation
- Continuously stay up-to-date with advancements in AI and Machine Learning, applying this knowledge to our projects
Our take
For many small businesses, vital administrative tasks such as payroll, taxes, and benefits are manual tasks that take time and energy which many SMB owners don’t have. The three co-founders of Gusto – all coming from small business backgrounds – collaborated on a Fintech company that would handle employee payments, benefits administration, and compliance support specifically for small businesses.
The company may have started slowly, as the founders focused on nailing each individual aspect of Gusto’s operations, but has now skyrocketed to unicorn status with more than 200,000 customers and a multi-billion dollar valuation. In 2021, Gusto began acquiring other companies to strengthen its offering and its position in a competitive market, including two other fintech startups, Ardius and Symmetry.
Through its continued acquisitions and fundraising efforts, the company has carved out a strong position for itself in the space. Although Gusto has found itself impacted by the macroeconomic situation, through the significant effect it has had on its clientele, the company still appears positive for the future after raising funds in 2023 that will see it reach key profitability benchmarks. It continues to consolidate its platform, for example by integrating with OpenComp to grant its users access to the company's Compensation Intelligence Platform.
Steph
Company Specialist
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
May 2022
$55m
SERIES E
Aug 2021
$175m
SERIES E
Total funding: $706.1m
Company benefits
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits, plus a variety of mental health resources
- Flexible vacation - Gusties are encouraged to take the time off they need to continue doing great work
- Fertility treatments, parental leave, pregnancy termination, caregiving, gender-affirming surgery, hormone treatments, transgender-inclusive services, and more
- If you work at one of our homebases, enjoy food, drinks, and good conversation — on us
- Celebrate 5 or 10 years at Gusto and take a month off to recharge
- Take advantage of internet, phone, commuter, and wellness stipends each month, along with a WFH stipend and cash for anniversaries
Company values
- Embody a service mindset - Never stop advocating for the needs of others
- Dream big, then make it real - Be ambitious. Show and do, rather than tell and talk
- Be proud of the how - Ensure deep integrity in everything you do
- Embrace an ownership mentality - Take initiative to leave things better than you found them
- Debate then commit - Share openly, question respectfully, and once a decision is made, commit fully
Company HQ
Central Waterfront, San Francisco, CA
Articles
Leadership
Joshua Reeves
(CEO)Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford and went onto co-found Gusto in 2011.
Tomer London
(CPO)Has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. Was a Researcher at Intel, and then interned at Bump Technologies. Co-founded Vizmo, a mobile self-service technologies company, in 2008. Co-founded Gusto in 2011.
Edward Kim
(Head of Engineering)Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford. Was Senior Project Engineer at Volkswagen of America Electronics Research Lab and then co-founded Picwing, a printed photos company, in 2008. Co-founded Gusto in 2011.
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