Staff Software Engineer, PEO Benefits

Denver, United StatesHybrid

Responsibilities

Design, build, and test the Gusto PEO
Mentor other engineers to help solve some of the hardest technical problems out there in very complex domains and at a large scale
Collaborate with our Product Management, Data, Design, and Platform Engineering teams to understand customer pain points, come up with solutions, and then prototype, iterate, and launch daily
Build products that our customers genuinely love

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
Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and Javascript/React applications in the world
Experience driving large, cross-functional projects end-to-end through ambiguity — scoping, sequencing, and unblocking without needing the problem pre-broken-down; aligning multiple stakeholders and working with multiple teams •
Experience leveraging AI tools or systems to accelerate development, improve testing, and deliver new product capabilities
Curiosity and experimentation with emerging AI frameworks , applying and sharing best practices to evaluate and scale AI use safely across teams
Experience in, or interest working in, Ruby on Rails
Ability to build well-structured, maintainable, well-documented code
Ability to effectively communicate across engineering teams and with business stakeholders

Successful applicants typically have 8+ years of software development experience
PEO Expertise (Preferred): 3+ years of experience with PEO, with direct

We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers.
All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success.
At the core is a national Master Health Plan that can unlock ~20–25% lower healthcare costs for small businesses through pooled purchasing power, something most PEOs can't pull off in year one.
Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $163,000–$204,000 in Denver & most remote locations, and $197,000–$247,000 for San Francisco & New York.
Stock equity is additional.

At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy.
With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve.
Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location.
Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy .
requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process. About the Role:
We're looking for seasoned full-stack software engineers to join Gusto’s PEO Benefits team.
Gusto is standing up a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) — one of the biggest new bets in the company — and
You'd be joining the engineering team building the systems that make that real.
This is rare greenfield scope inside a company with real scale and real customers. You get to make foundational architectural decisions, not maintain someone else's.
That means writing clean frontend code, designing and building reliable backend APIs, influencing product direction, and taking ownership of what happens after a feature ships.