Senior Product Manager, Gusto
Payroll Engine
$152-230k
Salary applicable to candidates based in Denver, San Francisco and New York only; dependent on location
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
Open for applications
Automated payroll, benefits & HR platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$152-230k
Salary applicable to candidates based in Denver, San Francisco and New York only; dependent on location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To create a world where work empowers a better life.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of product management experience, including meaningful ownership of platform or infrastructure systems in technically complex environments
- Proven track record of shipping high-scale, backend or platform products with real business and customer impact
- Strong systems thinking and product craft, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, influence without authority, and drive clarity across engineering and cross-functional teams
- Experience developing multi-year strategies, balancing flexibility and stability, and modernizing critical systems in a way that enables broader product innovation
- Comfort working in regulated or compliance-sensitive domains such as fintech, payroll, HR, or legal tech, with a deep appreciation for trust, accuracy, and risk reduction
What the job involves
- We’re looking for high-autonomy, entrepreneurial Product Managers to come build high-impact solutions for small businesses and their employees
- We believe in high-ownership Product Managers who operate like business owners - owning an entire roadmap end to end, and shaping the product from strategy setting through the nitty gritty execution details
- Our Product team is lean, which means you’ll have a high degree of impact and ownership
- We’re here to serve small and medium businesses. Gusto has a strong mission-driven culture, and we care deeply about lifting up these business owners
- Payroll is the beating heart of Gusto. The Payroll Engine team owns the systems that calculate every paycheck and orchestrate the workflows that power tax calculation, payments, filings, and compliance for over 400,000 small businesses across the country
- The Payroll Engine team owns the core platforms that every payroll run depends on
- It drives how earnings are calculated, how data flows between systems, and how internal teams build, scale, and innovate on top of payroll
- The platform processes billions of dollars in payroll each month and plays a foundational role in the new products Gusto brings to market
- This is deeply technical, high-leverage work. The team focuses on strengthening system extensibility, improving observability, and enabling every other team at Gusto to move faster with greater reliability and flexibility
- We collaborate closely with Engineering, Design, Compliance, Legal, CX, Data Science, and Operations to ensure our systems meet the needs of both customers and internal developers—today and into the future
- Ownership: Lead the strategy, roadmap, and execution for the core systems that power every payroll run at Gusto. Drive platform improvements in extensibility, observability, and developer experience to help internal teams build faster and with greater confidence
- North Star: Bring clarity to complex, ambiguous problem spaces by identifying the most critical opportunities for impact. Use customer outcomes, business goals, and technical realities to guide prioritization and ensure the team is always focused on what matters most
- Collaborate & Evangelize: Work closely with Engineering, Compliance, Design, Data Science, CX, Legal, and Operations to tackle complex, high-stakes problems in a regulated domain.Champion platform adoption by ensuring the Payroll Engine is intuitive, flexible, and easy to build on
- Customer Impact: Tie platform investments to customer outcomes by using data, partner input, and business context to prioritize work that improves accuracy, timeliness, and trust
- Execution Excellence: Advocate for long-term quality, scalability, and flexibility while maintaining a strong focus on delivering impact through thoughtful execution
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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