Principal Engineering Manager, Gusto
Infrastructure
$220-299k
Salary Dependant on Location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amount listed above.
More information about 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
$220-299k
Salary Dependant on Location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amount listed above.
More information about 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
- 8+ years of engineering people leadership experience
- 12+ years of hands-on infrastructure / SRE experience at scaled product companies
- Experience with working with cloud services, infrastructure as code
- Experience in empowering and nurturing multiple technical teams of 4-10 engineers
- Experience in managing and resolving complex operational roadmap issues
- Experience in leading large scope technical projects and driving engineering excellence
- Self-driven mindset, and the ability to work in the in-between space of leading and supporting people and driving direct, hands-on impact and creating memorable experiences for customers
What the job involves
- In this high-leverage role, you’ll lead initiatives to improve the core components of Gusto’s product offering, driving reliability, customer satisfaction, and product velocity
- As we scale, you’ll need to think 3+ years ahead of current engineering capabilities while delivering world-class service for millions of users today
- You'll oversee teams responsible for foundational infrastructure, including datastores, compute & networking services (Kubernetes, Istio), multi-region services, and AWS governance
- You will partner with cross-functional teams to foster an inclusive, high-performance culture that encourages experimentation and continuous improvement
- In this leadership role, you’ll grow a talented team and align technical excellence with strategic goals, driving innovation and lasting impact on the product and services we deliver to our customers
- As a leader, you’ll recruit, mentor, and develop talented engineers while fostering a culture of growth and continuous improvement. You will work closely with leadership to define strategic roadmaps, set clear priorities, and ensure accountability for both short-term and long-term goals
- You’ll take ownership of delivering impactful technical solutions, leading the planning, execution, and successful delivery of engineering projects
- In this role, you’ll balance technical excellence with pragmatic business priorities, while advocating for operational improvements that enhance product availability, performance, and cost-effectiveness across the organization
- A core tenet of the Infrastructure organization is to minimize complexity while maximizing the capabilities available to our product engineering teams
- Lead and Scale the Team: Recruit, mentor, and develop a diverse team of engineers while fostering an inclusive, collaborative, and high-performance culture
- Collaborate with leaders across backend disciplines to drive the evolution of Gusto’s technical implementation, delivering a shift from
- Drive Strategic Roadmaps: Work closely with leadership to set priorities, define both short-term and long-term goals, and ensure accountability for progress and delivery
- Own Delivery of Technical Solutions: Lead planning, execution, and delivery of impactful engineering projects, balancing technical excellence with practical business outcomes
- Champion Operational Excellence: Advocate for improvements in systems, processes, and workflows that enhance product availability, performance, and cost
- Foster Innovation: Encourage a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement within the team, leveraging insights to drive meaningful enhancements
- Do It Boring: Unlock powerful capabilities via elegant underlying solutions, ensuring auditability and ease of operations
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 at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
45% employee growth in 12 months
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 HQ
Central Waterfront, San Francisco, CA
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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