Growth Marketing Lead, Gusto
$166-207k
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
Open for applications
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$166-207k
1001+ employees
Company mission
To grow the small business economy.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of experience in growth marketing, demand generation, or performance marketing, with at least 3 years in a people management role
- Demonstrated success building and scaling customer acquisition programs (referral, affiliate, and/or word-of-mouth) from concept to measurable growth
- Working knowledge of paid acquisition channels (SEM, paid social, ABM, etc.) and a strong grasp of full-funnel growth strategy
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into decisions; experience with tools like Salesforce, Amplitude, redash, or similar platforms is a plus
- AI-fluent in practice, not just in theory; you use AI tools consistently in your day-to-day workflow to accelerate briefs, copy, program design, and analysis, and you're building toward systematizing those habits for your team
- Exceptional communicator who can influence across teams and present clearly to executive audiences
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience; MBA or quantitative background is a plus
What the job involves
- Small businesses run on relationships, and word of mouth is one of the most powerful and underutilized growth levers in the SMB market
- The small business owners who use Gusto are among our most vocal advocates, and this role exists to turn that goodwill into a scalable acquisition engine
- As our Head of Customer Referral & Emerging Channels, you'll own the programs that harness how customers naturally talk about us, accelerating our referral program, activating customer reviews, and tapping chat and other emerging communication channels
- You'll use AI to surface high-intent advocates, personalize outreach at scale, and identify the signals that predict who's most likely to refer
- Partnering closely with our AEO team, you'll coordinate emerging acquisition plays across the funnel
- This is a high-visibility role for someone equally energized by optimizing a mature program and standing up something net-new, and who sees the untapped potential in Gusto's customer base as the growth opportunity it truly is
- The Demand Generation team at Gusto is responsible for driving qualified pipeline and customer growth across all channels
- We're a detail-oriented, experiment-driven team that works closely with Sales, Product, and RevOps to build scalable programs that move the business
- We believe great growth marketing is part art, part science, and we're always testing, learning, and iterating
- You'll lead a team of sharp marketers who genuinely care about the small businesses we serve
- Manage and develop the growth marketing team, setting clear goals, providing coaching, and fostering a culture of accountability and innovation
- Own and evolve Gusto's customer referral program from strategy and incentive design, to measurement and optimization, driving meaningful new customer acquisition and revenue through word-of-mouth and network effects
- Build and run a rigorous experimentation roadmap, using advanced testing and data analysis to identify growth levers and scale what works
- Scout, pilot, and scale emerging acquisition channels, bringing rigor to what gets tested and moving quickly from hypothesis to results
- Partner with the Web Marketing team to surface and prioritize conversion experiments, translating referral and emerging channel performance data into landing page hypotheses and post-click optimizations that improve acquisition outcomes
- Partner cross-functionally with Growth, Product, Sales, RevOps, and Data teams to align growth programs with business priorities and optimize the full funnel from awareness to activation
- Use AI tools as a consistent, habitual part of your workflow, generating referral program briefs, developing incentive copy variants, accelerating channel research, and building reusable systems that scale best practices across the team
- Report on program performance to senior leadership, distilling complex data into clear insights and concrete recommendations
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 400,000 customers and a multi-billion dollar valuation. And 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 has seen it reach key profitability benchmarks. It continues to expand its platform, most recently partnering with Parafin to launch a payroll line of credit for small businesses. With a growing suite of services and a clear focus on supporting small businesses through changing economic conditions, Gusto looks set to sustain its momentum and further strengthen its position in the HR and payroll technology market.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
45% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
May 2022
$55m
SERIES E
Aug 2021
$175m
SERIES E
Total funding: $706.3m
Company benefits
- Health and Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents. Family care and support, including family planning and fertility benefits. Gender-affirming care and support. A variety of mental health resources.
- Time Away: It's important to take time away for yourself or to take care of your family. Gusto offers paid vacation, sick time, bereavement, and holidays, paid leaves, sabbatical, and more!
- Free meals and refreshments: If you work at one of our offices, enjoy food, drinks, and snacks— on us. Conversation and community is an added bonus!
- Perks:
Company HQ
Central Waterfront, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Joshua Reeves
(Co-Founder & CEO)Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford and went onto co-found Gusto in 2011.
Tomer London
(Co-Founder & 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
(Co-Founder & 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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