GustoSenior Software Engineer, Retirement Developer Infrastructure
About Gusto
At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff—like payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR—so owners can focus on their craft and customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we’re proud to support more than 400,000 small businesses across the country, and we’re building a workplace that represents and celebrates the customers we serve. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.
About the Role:
You'll be a key engineer focused on building and owning the systems that make Gusto Retirement engineers productive and happy. This is a very hands-on role: owning AI-powered developer tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure services end-to-end, shipping production improvements, and solving real developer productivity and infrastructure problems. We're building an AI-native engineering culture, and this role is at the center of it: you'll be a force multiplier that helps Gusto Retirement engineers ship more, faster, by putting the right tools in their hands. You'll partner closely with engineering teams across the Retirement area to turn developer pain points into reliable, automated solutions, and you'll help set the technical direction for how we build and operate these systems over time. If you like working on core systems that multiply team velocity, enjoy getting things shipped, and want to shape long-term platform strategy, you'll be a great fit.
About the Team:
The Retirement Developer Infrastructure team owns the tools and systems that power Gusto Retirement engineering. We're a senior team that works on CI/CD pipelines, observability, developer tooling, database performance, and much more. The work is complex and often cross-functional, so we stay focused, collaborate closely, and keep tight ownership of what we build. We work closely with all Retirement Engineering teams and product, but we're responsible for execution and reliability end-to-end.
Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:
- Build and own AI-powered developer tooling including AI coding tools, LLM-integrated workflows, and automation that help Retirement engineers ship faster and more efficiently.
- Design, build, and ship CI/CD systems, infrastructure services, and deployment pipelines end-to-end, owning them across multiple quarters while setting and enforcing engineering quality standards with the observability to back them up.
- Drive developer productivity by identifying bottlenecks, delivering scalable solutions, and proposing multi-quarter investments — spanning test automation, database performance, permissions systems, authentication, and third-party integrations (Honeycomb, Sentry, GitHub, etc.).
- Identify and execute on architectural improvements to data models, APIs, and system contracts; debug production infrastructure issues; and continuously raise the bar on reliability and operational tooling.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Retirement Engineering and Gusto platform teams on shared infrastructure through reviews, pairing, and technical consultation — contributing meaningfully to their direction.
- Write clear, reliable, well-tested code that ships quickly, makes other engineers more productive, and reflects a high standard of craftsmanship — while mentoring teammates and strengthening engineering culture.
Here’s what we're looking for:
- 8+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production products or platforms, with hands-on experience delivering AI-powered tooling, LLM integrations, coding assistants, or developer-facing automation to real users.
- Strong CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and developer tooling background including experience with high-availability systems, database performance, and reliability-critical domains.
- End-to-end ownership mindset comfortable owning systems and domains fully, including production support, operational work, and long-term roadmap planning across multiple quarters.
- Proven track record of identifying and driving multi-quarter technical investments, not just executing scoped work with the judgment to balance short-term delivery against long-term technical health.
- Collaborative and cross-functional experience working closely with engineering teams and non-engineering partners to identify, prioritize, and solve productivity and infrastructure problems at scale; a clear communicator who can lead project-level communication and advocate for technical investments.
- Pragmatic and execution-focused, with experience in Ruby on Rails and modern infrastructure tools (or the ability to ramp quickly) and a bias toward solutions that make other engineers faster and more effective.
Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $175,000-$205,000 /yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $220,000-$245,000 /yr for San Francisco, Seattle & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.
Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations 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.
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.
Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. 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. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.
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