Principal Software Engineer, Gusto
Contractors Payroll
$251-309k
Salary varies by 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
$251-309k
Salary varies by location
2-3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To grow the small business economy.
Role
Who you are
- 15+ years of professional software development experience
- Experience as a tech lead, overseeing and successfully delivering projects that span multiple teams
- Enthusiasm for a collaborative, test-driven development environment
- Proven experience building and maintaining resilient backend systems that support customer-facing products, including optimizing existing systems for performance, reliability, and scalability
- Ability to produce maintainable, structured, and well-documented code
- Expertise in developing and maintaining RESTful APIs, GraphQL endpoints, and backend services, ensuring seamless integration with frontend systems and third-party services
- Demonstrated ability in scaling engineering organizations, with a strong focus on individual and team development and mentorship
- Experience in highly cross-functional environments working on highly complex products
- Ability to clearly communicate technical complexity and facilitate informed trade-offs among stakeholders
- Experience using AI tools to build, test, and iterate on products quickly
- Understanding of how to evaluate AI-driven outputs using clear success criteria
- A commitment to staying current on emerging backend technologies and AI frameworks and patterns, regularly experimenting with new approaches
- Willingness to contribute to shared tools or templates that enhance the speed and safety of AI experimentation
What the job involves
- As the Principal Engineer for the Contractors team, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of Gusto’s flagship Payroll product—one of the core pillars of our platform
- You will design, build, and scale the capabilities that power essential experiences for our customers
- Working collaboratively with product managers, designers, and other engineers, you will deliver impactful features that meet customer needs and elevate user experiences
- As a Gusto Engineer at this level, you’ll guide projects end-to-end—shaping initial feature specifications, driving architectural decisions to bring systems closer to their desired end states, executing on complex initiatives, and maintaining code that powers mission-critical functionality
- Beyond technical contributions, you’ll help define and contribute to the broader strategy of how Gusto continues to build and scale its Payroll product
- The Contractors team empowers businesses to onboard and pay contractors in 120+ countries with ease and speed
- This includes critical functionalities such as payroll setup, preparation, and submission, historical reporting, time tracking, and shift scheduling
- As a key member of this team, you’ll have the opportunity to make a profound impact on both the product and the customers who depend on it daily
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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