Staff Software Engineer, AI Developer Tools

About the role

As a Staff Engineer on the Developer Productivity - AI Developer Tools team, you will be the architectural anchor shaping the AI platform that accelerates engineering across Gusto. You will redefine how our entire engineering organization builds, tests, and ships software by architecting a highly secure, context-aware, "AI-native" development lifecycle. Your mission is to eliminate developer friction through AI tools, multi-agent systems, and intelligent automation.

• Help us drive developer productivity by building the next generation of AI tools.

Responsibilities

Day-to-day
- Architect AI Core Infrastructure: Design, scale, and maintain the internal platform and APIs that integrate LLMs into the developer workflow, with a heavy focus on autonomous agents, custom retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and smart context-delivery systems.

Drive Technical Leadership & Vision
- Establish engineering best practices for building with AI at Gusto, including robust evaluation frameworks (evals), guardrails for code safety, and strategies for optimizing model latency and token spend.

Collaborate & Evangelize
- Partner closely with product engineering teams to uncover systemic friction points, and collaborate with core Infrastructure and Security teams to ensure all AI tooling is scalable, compliant, and secure.

Optimize Feedback Loops
- Identify and eliminate critical bottlenecks in the local-to-production lifecycle at scale across Gusto.

Maintain Enterprise Reliability
- Treat AI infrastructure with production-grade rigor. Monitor system health, diagnose complex integration or networking issues, and mitigate model drift or downtime.

Requirements

• 8+ Years of Systems Expertise: You are a seasoned engineer who is highly comfortable navigating massive, complex codebases and delivering production-grade, distributed software.
• Production AI Experience: You have a proven track record of moving AI beyond prototypes. You possess a deep understanding of prompt engineering, fine-tuning, RAG architectures, and orchestrating multi-agent workflows.
• Developer-First Mindset: You are passionate about Developer Experience and Productivity. You intuitively understand what makes an internal tool frictionless, fast, and empowering for other engineers.
• Strategic Execution: You don't just build wrappers; you think deeply about data privacy, security, cost management, and systemic reliability when deploying AI solutions.
• Exceptional Communication: You can seamlessly translate bleeding-edge AI capabilities into clear, actionable infrastructure strategies, mentoring junior engineers and aligning cross-functional stakeholders along the way.
• Working as a Team: You work across team boundaries and bring other teams and groups along with you towards our strategic vision.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems and cloud platforms.
• Strong understanding of machine learning concepts and technologies.
• Experience with natural language processing (NLP) and knowledge of transformer models like BERT, GPT, etc.
• Experience with automated testing and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD).
• Experience with version control systems such as Git.

Skills

• Python, Java, or C++ programming languages.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, or similar containerization technologies.
• Experience with AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure.
• Experience with SQL databases and NoSQL databases like MongoDB.
• Experience with DevOps tools and practices.

Benefits

All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

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.

Pay

The cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $180,000/yr to $200,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, $220,000/yr to $245,000/yr for San Francisco, New York & Seattle. Stock equity is additional. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Schedule

Employees who are based in Gusto's physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale. Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.

Location

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.

Company Culture

We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures.