Staff Software Engineer, AI Developer Tools Denver, CO;San Francisco, CA;New York, NY;Seattle, [...]

Staff Software Engineer, AI Developer Tools Denver, CO; San Francisco, CA; New York, NY; Seattle, WA; United States – Remote 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 customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide and build a workplace that reflects the people we serve. 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. Whether you are building bespoke internal coding assistants, automating sprawling codebase refactors, or deploying AI to self‑heal CI/CD pipelines, your work will directly multiply the velocity of hundreds of builders. About the Team The AI Developer Tools team is a specialized team within Developer Productivity. We believe AI is the next great leap in software craftsmanship. Our goal is to provide every builder at Gusto with a suite of superpowers tools that deeply understand our codebase and absorb operational toil so engineers can focus on creative problem‑solving. Day‑to‑Day Responsibilities 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. Qualifications 8+ Years of Systems Expertise: Deep experience navigating massive, complex codebases and delivering production‑grade, distributed software. Production AI Experience: Proven track record of moving AI beyond prototypes. Deep understanding of prompt engineering, fine‑tuning, RAG architectures, and orchestrating multi‑agent workflows. Developer‑First Mindset: Passion for Developer Experience and Productivity; intuitively understands what makes an internal tool frictionless, fast, and empowering. Strategic Execution: Thinks deeply about data privacy, security, cost management, and systemic reliability when deploying AI solutions. Exceptional Communication: Translates bleeding‑edge AI capabilities into clear, actionable infrastructure strategies, mentors junior engineers, and aligns cross‑functional stakeholders. Team Collaboration: Works across team boundaries and brings other teams together toward a shared vision. Compensation Targeted cash compensation: $180,000‑$200,000 / yr in Denver and most remote locations; $220,000‑$245,000 / yr for San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. Stock equity is additional. Final offers reflect multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise. Work Arrangement Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees based in those locations are expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2‑3 days / week (or more, depending on role). The same expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto’s subsidiary, whose office is in Scottsdale. 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, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, and is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans. #J-18808-Ljbffr Gusto