Product Counsel - HR Apps/Employment Law

About Gusto

At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers. 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.

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.

About the Role:

We are seeking a detail-oriented and proactive attorney who wants to apply their employment law and product counseling expertise to help build compliant, scalable HR products for small businesses. This is a unique opportunity to serve as the embedded legal partner for Gusto's HR Apps portfolio—a broad and growing suite of products spanning employee handbooks, compliance guidance and templates, hiring, onboarding, and beyond.

In this role, you will provide day-to-day legal support to our HR Apps product and engineering teams, with a focus on building out a suite of compliance products that make a real difference for small businesses and their employees. We're looking for a creative attorney who brings a builder's mentality and a genuine "find a way forward" approach to complex legal and product challenges. If you want to use technology and teamwork to build compliance solutions for small businesses, this role might be a great fit for you.

Success in this role requires strong organizational skills, a process-oriented mindset, and the ability to manage a high volume of requests across a diverse product portfolio. Attorneys are expected to use AI tools in everyday work to accelerate research and processes, synthesize insights, and refine positioning and content with speed and precision, while maintaining accuracy and consistency with legal best practices.

About the Team:

Gusto's Legal & Compliance team partners with product and engineering teams to enable innovation, facilitate responsible company growth, accelerate the Gusto roadmap, and provide compliant products to our customers through solution-focused counsel on legal and business risks. We are passionate about using groundbreaking technology and excellent service to elevate the experience of small business owners and their employees. Each team member takes real ownership of their work and makes a meaningful impact every day.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Provide tactical legal support to HR Apps product, engineering, and operations teams for a broad portfolio of HR products, including handbooks, labor law posters, hiring, onboarding, leaves of absence, I-9, regulatory reporting, background checks, learning management, performance, and offboarding.
• Review product requirements and identify compliance and regulatory risks early in the development process, during product iteration, and throughout the product lifecycle.
• Identify, prioritize, and develop HR Apps-related compliance artifacts to seed Gusto's compliance rules engine and maintain the Legal “Single Source of Truth” compliance hub.
• Build processes, resources, and tooling—including AI-driven workflows, self-help checklists, playbooks, and structured frameworks for R&D requests (e.g., via JIRA and/or Notion)—that drive efficiency, standardize review workflows, and reduce risk across the product development lifecycle.
• Research regulatory areas impacting HR Apps offerings; proactively monitor regulatory developments and legislative changes to assess product impact and identify needed updates.
• Help resolve day-to-day customer escalations and operational legal questions related to HR Apps products.
• Support vendor review and onboarding, partner integrations, and GTM communications, terms drafting, and revision.

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 5+ years of legal experience, ideally including in-house experience at a technology company. Experience must include a deep understanding of employment law and litigation. Product counseling experience is strongly preferred—but candidates who bring a builder's mindset and a demonstrated ability to quickly develop expertise in new legal domains are encouraged to apply even without direct product counseling experience.
• Deep experience providing pragmatic legal guidance on employment obligations and building durable compliance resources.
• Experience using AI tools to deliver efficiency in your individual work and as essential components in the processes you develop and improve.
• Demonstrated ability to build consensus and strong working relationships.
• A collaborative, solution-oriented mindset with a focus on progress and teamwork (no job is too big or too small).
• An eagerness to dive in, take ownership of projects, and manage work with accountability, while ensuring appropriate visibility and smooth escalation to senior counsel or other decision-makers.
• JD degree and membership in a State bar with a current license to practice law.

Our cash compensation amount for this role is $143,405/yr to $176,000/yr in Denver & most major metro locations, and $168,000/yr to $207,000/yr for San Francisco & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, 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.

Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer .

Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to  Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice .