Staff Data Scientist, Gusto
Product
$154-225k
Salary dependent on location
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
Be an early applicant
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$154-225k
Salary dependent on location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To grow the small business economy.
Role
Who you are
- Gusto is looking for highly skilled and motivated Data Scientists with extensive experience (7+ years) applying their expertise in a business environment
- The ideal candidate is a trusted data storyteller with strong statistical and coding skills, and a passion for applying these skills to help small businesses thrive
- 7–10 years of experience in Data Science at a product-focused software company
- Strong SQL skills and comfort with Python
- Proven ability to apply statistical methods, causal inference, AI tools, and experimental design to real business problems
- Excellent communication skills, with a track record of influencing cross-functional stakeholders and leadership
- Demonstrated experience leading large, technically complex projects with clear business impact
- A proactive, resilient problem-solver who independently structures ambiguous problems into actionable insights
- Passion for mentoring others and raising the bar for data science craft across the team
- BS/MS/PhD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, Applied Math, etc.) or equivalent industry experience
What the job involves
- As a Staff Data Scientist, you will play a crucial role in leveraging experimentation, statistical inference, and causal analysis to drive strategic decision making that contributes to the overall success of our organization
- In this role you will work closely with our Product, Engineering, Design, Finance, and other Data teams to become an expert in the data for your domain, define and track metrics that help us understand our business performance, and dive deep into our Payroll, Benefits, and HR data to deliver insights and answer questions
- You’ll also integrate AI-assisted practices to accelerate analysis, enhance rigor, and expand the reach of insights across Gusto. We have multiple senior roles open, each focused on a different area of our business
- Lead: Own ambiguous problems, design analysis frameworks, and introduce structure that scales across multiple product domains
- Strategic Partnership: Collaborate with product managers, engineering leads, designers, and operations teams to proactively identify opportunities, align on strategy, and guide data-informed decision-making
- Analytical Rigor: Apply advanced statistical methods, causal inference, experimentation, and AI-assisted analytics to surface drivers of product performance, separating signal from noise
- Experimentation & Measurement: Design, analyze, and interpret experiments; ensure insights highlight trade-offs and limitations based on sample size and data quality
- Execution: Deliver multiple high-impact projects, balancing trade-offs to maximize business value, and maintain clear expectations of deliverables and timelines
- Communication: Present complex findings in a structured, compelling way to technical and non-technical stakeholders, fostering a data-informed mindset across the company
- Independence: Work with minimal guidance to prioritize, create, and deliver data science roadmaps, proactively resolving conflicts or misalignment across stakeholders
- Scaling the Craft: Mentor other data practitioners, up-level team best practices in experimentation, statistical modeling, and metric interpretation. Drive improvements in data quality, rigor, and adoption of better data capabilities leveraging AI-native tools and workflows across the org
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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