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. You'll work closely with a small, senior team to implement language-model-powered experiences. 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.

Here's what you'll do day-to-day

• 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.

Here's what we're looking for

• 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.
• Clear communicator who can 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).

Additional information

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.

At Gusto, we don't use titles the traditional way, as a signal of rank or hierarchy. Instead, our titles describe two things at once - your craft (what you do, e.g. Engineering, Design) and your scope of ownership (what you're accountable for) - which is why you'll see something like "Head of X" instead of a rank word like "Director" that tells you neither.

Because of this, the title on this posting may look different from what you'd expect based on the scope and seniority of the role, and from how similar roles are typically titled elsewhere. If you have questions about how this role compares to your current title or level, your recruiter can help translate.

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.

Reliable, consistent presence: We expect regular and predictable attendance, whether you're working in-office, hybrid, or fully remote, so that you stay closely connected to your team, customers, and stakeholders in real time and ensure colleagues and customers receive the timely support and responsiveness they deserve.

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.

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