Staff Software Engineer, Retirement AI

About the role

You’ll be a key engineer helping us ship real, user-facing AI at Gusto Retirement. This role is all about bias to action: owning problems end-to-end, getting working software in front of customers, and iterating quickly.

If you like being hands-on, making pragmatic technical decisions, working closely with product & design partners, and turning ideas into production features, you’ll be a great fit.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and ship production features that use large language models to solve real customer problems.
• Implement and integrate LLMs (prompting, tool loops, evaluation, monitoring, etc).
• Make pragmatic architecture decisions, de-risk tricky areas, and keep the work unblocked.
• Partner with product and design to refine ideas, shape scope, and iterate quickly on end-to-end experiences.
• Collaborate with other engineering teams to integrate with existing systems and unblock dependencies.
• Write clear, reliable, well-tested code that ships quickly and scales well.

Requirements

• 7+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production products or platforms.
• Hands-on experience implementing LLM-powered features (e.g., RAG flows, agents, tool loops, workflow automation with language models, etc).
• Strong engineering skills (e.g., services, APIs, data flows); comfortable spending most of your time coding.
• Experience running or heavily contributing to a team’s execution: sprints, Jira, scoping, and cross-functional coordination.
• Bias to action: you default to trying things, iterating, and learning, rather than getting stuck in analysis or waiting for direction.
• Able to communicate clearly and work well with product, design, and other engineering teams without needing a formal management title.
• Experienced with Ruby on Rails (or any comparable language), React (or any comparable library).

Qualifications

The following qualifications are desired but not required:

• Experience with AI and machine learning technologies.
• Knowledge of natural language processing and language models.
• Experience with cloud-based services and infrastructure.

Skills

• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Attention to detail and ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.

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.

Pay

Cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $187,000-$234,000 in Denver & most remote locations, and $227,000-$284,000 for San Francisco & New York. 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).

Benefits

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $187,000-$234,000 in Denver & most remote locations, and $227,000-$284,000 for San Francisco & New York. 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.

Application Instructions

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. 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.

Equal Opportunity Employer

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.