Senior Staff AI/ML Engineer, Gusto
$245-321k
Salary dependent on location. + RSUs
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
$245-321k
Salary dependent on location. + RSUs
2-3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To grow the small business economy.
Role
Who you are
- 12+ years building and deploying end-to-end AI/ML systems, with experience designing platform-level infrastructure that other engineering teams build on
- Deep expertise in one or more areas: LLMs, NLP, retrieval/RAG, agent orchestration, deep learning, or reinforcement learning
- Hands-on experience building LLM-based applications and agentic workflows — including prompt engineering, retrieval design, evaluation, and production deployment
- Proficiency with modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face) and cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure)
- Strong Python skills and sound software engineering fundamentals — testing, code review, CI/CD, reliability, and API design
- Proven track record shipping impactful AI/ML projects to production, ideally in a platform or infrastructure context
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functionally, influence technical direction, and communicate clearly with both engineers and non-technical stakeholders
- Ph.D. or Master's in CS, ML, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field is a plus
What the job involves
- AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto
- We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves
- AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process
- You'll design, build, and scale the AI platform that empowers Gusto's internal teams to build intelligent agents and deliver customer value
- This includes developing core platform capabilities — agent orchestration, RAG infrastructure, eval tooling, model serving, prompt management, observability, and safety guardrails — that enable product teams to rapidly build, test, and ship AI-powered experiences
- You'll own the full lifecycle from problem framing to production deployment, ensuring the platform is reliable, performant, and easy to adopt
- As a Staff MLE, you'll also shape technical standards, drive architectural decisions, and mentor engineers across the organization
- You'll join the CoreX AI Platform team, responsible for building the foundational AI infrastructure that Gusto's internal app teams rely on to create and ship intelligent agents
- We're a small, high-impact group of ML engineers and platform builders working closely with Product Engineers, PMs, and Designers across the company
- We move fast, prototype boldly, and focus on making it easy for any team
- Design and build scalable platform services — agent orchestration, RAG pipelines, eval frameworks, model serving — that internal teams use to ship AI-powered products
- Lead technical strategy and architecture for the AI platform, including model lifecycle, observability, safety guardrails, and evaluation infrastructure
- Collaborate cross-functionally with app teams, PMs, and Designers to understand their AI needs and deliver platform capabilities that unblock them
- Build, harden, and operate shared infrastructure that powers intelligent agents across Gusto (e.g., retrieval, routing, prompt management, content selection)
- Stay current with AI/ML research; rapidly prototype and productionize new techniques that strengthen the platform
- Establish robust practices for validation, deployment, monitoring, and ongoing performance management of platform services and the agents built on them
- Communicate technical strategy, tradeoffs, and impact clearly to executives and non-technical partners
- Mentor engineers across teams, raising the bar on AI/ML best practices and fostering a culture of pragmatic innovation
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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