Senior People Partner, Gusto
Customer Experience
$154-223.6k
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
$154-223.6k
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
- This role is ideal for a People Partner who thrives in dynamic environments and is energized by the opportunity to influence both strategic and tactical work
- This role demands agility, systems thinking, and the ability to navigate empathy between strategic perspective, hands-on impact, and high-urgency moments
- 7–10 years of progressive HR/People Partner experience, with at least 3–5 years in strategic HRBP roles
- Experience supporting high-volume, operational, or customer-facing teams (e.g., contact centers, sales, or field ops) is strongly preferred
- Strategic business partner mindset with the ability to align People strategies to business goals and translate complexity into clear, actionable plans
- Strong organizational design and change leadership skills, with a proven track record of helping teams navigate growth, restructuring, or role clarity work in dynamic environments
- Fluency in non-exempt labor laws, compliance requirements, and employee relations, particularly in distributed and hourly-heavy teams
- Experience coaching and influencing senior leaders, providing grounded, practical guidance rooted in trust, business acumen, and empathy
- Data-driven approach to workforce planning, performance, and engagement—comfortable using analytics to inform decisions and measure impact
- Collaborative, systems thinker with experience partnering cross-functionally with Talent Development, Invite, Compensation, Benefits, DEIB, and ER to implement cohesive, scalable solutions
- Cultural humility and inclusive leadership mindset, with a history of advocating for equity, representation, and belonging through both strategy and everyday practices
- Resilient, ethical, and calm under pressure, with a bias toward problem-solving and delivering impact while maintaining trust and confidentiality
- When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees
What the job involves
- As Gusto continues to scale, we’re looking for a Senior People Partner to support one of our largest and most complex organizations—Customer Experience (CX)
- This includes high-volume, distributed, and non-exempt teams where the work is fast-paced and requires operational rigor
- In this highly visible role, you'll operate at the intersection of business strategy and people execution, serving as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across CX
- You'll lead initiatives in org design, change management, and talent strategy within a fast-paced, high-volume operational environment, while coaching across levels and functions
- As a strategic partner, you'll collaborate across People functions to design integrated solutions that align with business goals
- You'll lead initiatives that elevate performance, scale leadership, and enhance the CX employee experience with minimal oversight
- This is a unique opportunity to shape core people strategies within one of Gusto’s most critical organizations driving growth, strengthening engagement, and scaling leadership across the company
- Gusto's People team is growing and scaling with the company
- As our business scales and becomes more complex, and as we add hundreds of new Gusties each year, we need to ensure that our strategies for engagement with our employees are positive, engaging, values-driven and compliant
- Act as a strategic advisor and thought partner to business leaders, helping them navigate performance management, team effectiveness, and leadership development
- Support organizational design and workforce planning initiatives by assessing capabilities, identifying talent gaps, and helping to implement people plans
- Guide teams through change management efforts, helping them adapt to evolving structures, roles, or processes in a compliant and empathetic way
- Champion an inclusive and equitable employee experience by advocating for representation, trust, and fairness, particularly across operational and dispersed teams
- Partner with Invite, Talent Development, Compensation, Benefits, ER, and Legal to implement cohesive people strategies aligned to business goals
- Use people data and insights to support decision-making, monitor progress, and iterate on existing practices
- Navigate complex and sensitive people situations, applying sound judgment and collaboration to reach aligned outcomes
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.
Salary benchmarks
We don't have enough data yet to provide salary benchmarks for this role.
Submit your salary to help other candidates with crowdsourced salary estimates.
Share this job
View 49 more jobs at Gusto