Senior Staff Software Engineer, API Infrastructure

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Gusto Embedded Payroll Join Gusto, a company 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 support more than 400,000 small businesses across the country and build a workplace that represents and celebrates the customers we serve. About the Role As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Embedded Payroll team, you will be a key technical leader responsible for influencing the team and broader organization as we build and scale our product. You will do this through a combination of hands‑on development in our complex Ruby on Rails codebase and guiding others to deliver a high‑quality platform experience. About the Team Gusto Embedded Payroll is a platform that allows developers to embed payroll directly into their own software using our APIs. We’ve taken Gusto’s robust payroll infrastructure and made it available to third‑party developers. Our vision is to enable anyone to build the best payroll product for their end customers—powering payroll for small and medium businesses across a variety of industries, from vertical SaaS to fintech and neobanks. Responsibilities (Day‑to‑day) Identify and solve high‑impact problems involving technical and organizational complexity that requires understanding and coordination across multiple domains. Engage directly with our developer‑customers to deliver a remarkable payroll product. Ship code that is clean, tested, and performant. Level up the craft of software engineering across the organization by providing technical guidance and mentoring. Inform and maintain best practices for reliability and observability for the team. Troubleshoot and resolve production issues. What We're Looking For 12+ years of professional software development experience with a track record of driving impact at scale. Proven ability to take ownership of company‑wide engineering initiatives and contribute to scaling engineering organizations. Ruby and Rails expert. Deep experience working across large, complex codebases and comfort operating at multiple layers of abstraction. Demonstrated success in designing and building platforms, services, and APIs with a focus on reliability, scalability, and performance. History of mentoring engineers, raising the technical bar, and guiding teams through ambiguous problems and competing priorities. Ability to connect technical decisions to business priorities, align teams around the right goals, and effectively communicate tradeoffs and technical needs to business stakeholders. Compensation Our cash compensation for this role is targeted at $200,000–$230,000 per year in Denver and most remote locations, and $230,000–$270,000 per year for San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise. Location & Remote Policy Employees who are based in Denver, San Francisco, or New York City are expected to work from the office on designated days, approximately 2–3 days per week. The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles at Gusto’s subsidiary in Scottsdale. Equal Opportunity Employer 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 legally protected characteristics. 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. 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. Privacy & Security Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer. Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto’s Applicant Privacy Notice. #J-18808-Ljbffr