Staff Applied AI Scientist, Gusto
$245-321k
Salary applicable to candidates in Denver, San Francisco, and New York and may vary in other locations
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 applicable to candidates in Denver, San Francisco, and New York and may vary in other locations
2-3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To grow the small business economy.
Role
Who you are
- At least 10+ years of software engineering experience (Python, Ruby or Java), 6+ years of ML experience, and 3+ years designing and shipping Gen AI models
- Proven ability to design and prototype AI solutions quickly
- Experience working on AI agent systems to automate end to end workflows
- Experience building, deploying and maintaining LLM-based applications in production
- Experience with LangGraph, TypeScript, LlamaIndex, and related tools such as LangChain, OpenAI/Anthropic APIs, vector databases, and modern backend frameworks (e.g., Node.js, FastAPI) is preferred
What the job involves
- In this role, you will design, build, evaluate, and ship AI products powered by proprietary and open-source LLMs. You will own the full AI development lifecycle—from problem framing and system design to framework selection, implementation, evaluation, and deployment. As an Applied AI Scientist, you will drive end-to-end customer impact, delivering reliable, production-ready intelligent systems
- We’re looking to accelerate AI investments across the business to solve customer pain points, and are growing our Applied AI team. You’ll be a part of the core group of experts exploring big, innovative bets, quickly prototyping solutions and shipping to customers. You're also responsible for quickly iterating on improvements and eventually scaling to production-grade AI applications. You’ll be working alongside a multidisciplinary group of Product Engineers, PMs, and Design
- Design, develop, and deploy agentic AI systems capable of autonomous reasoning, tool use, memory management, and multi-step task execution
- Improve LLM-driven agents through pre-training, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning (including human and AI feedback), and iterative alignment for reliable decision-making
- Build robust evaluation frameworks for LLMs and agent-based systems, including task success metrics, reasoning quality, tool-use accuracy, safety, and end-to-end workflow performance to ensure models are fit for purpose
- Collaborate with the engineering team to determine technical requirements and SLAs for API-enabled services
- Research novel AI techniques and strategies that create magical customer experiences
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 58 more jobs at Gusto