Senior Manager, Data Science – Payments

About Gusto

At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff—like payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR—so owners can focus on their craft and customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we're proud to support more than 400,000 small businesses across the country, and we're building a workplace that represents and celebrates the customers we serve. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy. 

About the Role:

Gusto's Data Science team leverages our rich data to shape product strategy and inform critical business decisions. We operate end-to-end — from analysis and experimentation to enabling production systems that support both internal teams and our customers.

For this role, we're seeking a Senior Manager, Data Science to provide technical and strategic leadership across the payments and treasury domains. You will lead teams responsible for building scalable, data-driven capabilities that support money movement, liquidity management, and payment reliability, while applying machine learning and analytics where they meaningfully add value. Experience with risk is a plus, but the primary focus of this role is payments and treasury.

You'll partner closely with established leaders across Engineering, Product, Design, Operations, and Finance/Treasury to drive cross-functional alignment and execution. In this role, you'll own initiatives that span the breadth of the payments and treasury stack, setting direction, guiding teams, and ensuring we deliver a secure, reliable, and trusted financial platform that safeguards customer funds and supports Gusto's growing ecosystem.

Here's what you'll do day-to-day:

• Lead the strategy and application of machine learning and advanced analytics across payments and treasury, including identifying opportunities, framing problems with stakeholders, defining success criteria, and guiding teams to deliver scalable, data-driven solutions; experience with risk use cases is a plus.
• Own end-to-end delivery and cross-functional execution, partnering closely with Engineering, Product, and Design to solve complex, ambiguous problems and ensure solutions are production-ready, well-instrumented, and operationally sound.
• Set technical standards and scalable frameworks that elevate the team's core analytical and modeling capabilities, including reusable tooling and thoughtful integration of AI/LLMs where they meaningfully improve data processing, analysis, or decision-making.
• Communicate insights, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly to stakeholders across the company, influencing decisions through strong narratives grounded in data and business context.

Here's what we're looking for:

• 10+ years of experience in data science, analytics, or a related quantitative field, including 4+ years leading and scaling data science teams, with accountability for hiring, developing senior ICs, and owning outcomes across one or more business-critical domains.
• Domain analytics and experimentation leadership — deep experience driving insights and decisions across payments, treasury, and risk domains (e.g., loss, fraud, disputes, authorization rates, funds flow, liquidity, and operational risk), with strong command of experimentation, causal analysis, and tradeoff evaluation in regulated, high-impact environments.
• Technical and analytical leadership — strong grounding in statistics and applied modeling, with the ability to set technical standards, review complex analyses, and coach senior data scientists, maintaining a high bar for analytical rigor and quality.
• Strategic business impact — demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous problems into data strategy, influence multi-quarter product and platform roadmaps, and connect insights to measurable business outcomes.
• Executive communication and cross-functional influence — proven experience partnering with VP-level and senior leaders across Product, Engineering, Ops and Finance teams, translating complex data into clear tradeoffs and actionable recommendations that drive decisions.

If you don't think you meet all of the criteria below but still are interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box, and we're looking for someone excited to join the team.

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $218,000 - $272,000 /yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $256,000 - $321,000 /yr for San Francisco & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

We have offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York and have remote team members across the US and Canada. We are actively hiring for the following Centers of Gravity: Toronto, Canada, Atlanta, GA, Austin, TX, Chicago, IL, Denver, CO, Los Angeles, CA, Miami, FL, and Seattle, WA. Our open roles will specify on the careers page and in the job description where the position is eligible for work.

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 Scottsdale.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. 

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto. 

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.

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Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice.