Product Counsel, Gusto
HR Apps/Employment Law
$143.4-207k
+ RSUs. Salary dependent on 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
$143.4-207k
+ RSUs. Salary dependent on location.
2-3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To grow the small business economy.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of legal experience, ideally including in-house experience at a technology company. Experience must include a deep understanding of employment law and litigation. Product counseling experience is strongly preferred—but candidates who bring a builder's mindset and a demonstrated ability to quickly develop expertise in new legal domains are encouraged to apply even without direct product counseling experience
- Deep experience providing pragmatic legal guidance on employment obligations and building durable compliance resources
- Experience using AI tools to deliver efficiency in your individual work and as essential components in the processes you develop and improve
- Demonstrated ability to build consensus and strong working relationships
- A collaborative, solution-oriented mindset with a focus on progress and teamwork (no job is too big or too small)
- An eagerness to dive in, take ownership of projects, and manage work with accountability, while ensuring appropriate visibility and smooth escalation to senior counsel or other decision-makers
- JD degree and membership in a State bar with a current license to practice law
- 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
What the job involves
- We are seeking a detail-oriented and proactive attorney who wants to apply their employment law and product counseling expertise to help build compliant, scalable HR products for small businesses
- This is a unique opportunity to serve as the embedded legal partner for Gusto's HR Apps portfolio—a broad and growing suite of products spanning employee handbooks, compliance guidance and templates, hiring, onboarding, and beyond
- In this role, you will provide day-to-day legal support to our HR Apps product and engineering teams, with a focus on building out a suite of compliance products that make a real difference for small businesses and their employees
- We're looking for a creative attorney who brings a builder's mentality and a genuine "find a way forward" approach to complex legal and product challenges
- If you want to use technology and teamwork to build compliance solutions for small businesses, this role might be a great fit for you
- Success in this role requires strong organizational skills, a process-oriented mindset, and the ability to manage a high volume of requests across a diverse product portfolio
- Attorneys are expected to use AI tools in everyday work to accelerate research and processes, synthesize insights, and refine positioning and content with speed and precision, while maintaining accuracy and consistency with legal best practices
- Gusto's Legal & Compliance team partners with product and engineering teams to enable innovation, facilitate responsible company growth, accelerate the Gusto roadmap, and provide compliant products to our customers through solution-focused counsel on legal and business risks
- We are passionate about using groundbreaking technology and excellent service to elevate the experience of small business owners and their employees
- Each team member takes real ownership of their work and makes a meaningful impact every day
- Provide tactical legal support to HR Apps product, engineering, and operations teams for a broad portfolio of HR products, including handbooks, labor law posters, hiring, onboarding, leaves of absence, I-9, regulatory reporting, background checks, learning management, performance, and offboarding
- Review product requirements and identify compliance and regulatory risks early in the development process, during product iteration, and throughout the product lifecycle
- Identify, prioritize, and develop HR Apps-related compliance artifacts to seed Gusto's compliance rules engine and maintain the Legal “Single Source of Truth” compliance hub
- Build processes, resources, and tooling—including AI-driven workflows, self-help checklists, playbooks, and structured frameworks for R&D requests (e.g., via JIRA and/or Notion)—that drive efficiency, standardize review workflows, and reduce risk across the product development lifecycle
- Research regulatory areas impacting HR Apps offerings; proactively monitor regulatory developments and legislative changes to assess product impact and identify needed updates
- Help resolve day-to-day customer escalations and operational legal questions related to HR Apps products
- Support vendor review and onboarding, partner integrations, and GTM communications, terms drafting, and revision
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 co-founders of Gusto all come from small business backgrounds, which is why they created a platform 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 position in a competitive market, including the likes of Ardius, Symmetry and Guideline.
Through its continued acquisitions and fundraising efforts, the company has carved out a strong position for itself in the space. It continues to expand its platform, for example by partnering with Parafin to launch a payroll line of credit for small businesses, and more recently launching Cofounder, an AI teammate tailored to the needs of small businesses.
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
- 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
- Paid vacation, sick time, bereavement, and holidays, paid leaves, sabbatical, and more
- Free meals and refreshments at the office (conversation and community is an added bonus!)
Company HQ
Central Waterfront, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Joshua Reeves
(CEO & Co-Founder)Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford and went onto co-found Gusto in 2011.
Tomer London
(CPO & Co-Founder)Has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. Was a Researcher at Intel, and then interned at Bump Technologies. Co-founded Vizmo before co-founding Gusto in 2011.
Edward Kim
(Head of Technology & Co-Founder)Studied Electrical Engineering at Stanford. Was Senior Project Engineer at Volkswagen of America Electronics Research Lab and then co-founded Picwing before co-founding Gusto in 2011.
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