Software Engineering Manager, Payroll Delivery

About Gusto

At Gusto were on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stufflike payroll health insurance 401(k)s and HRso owners can focus on their craft and customers. With teams in Denver San Francisco and New York were proud to support more than 400000 small businesses across the country and were building a workplace that represents and celebrates the customers we serve. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

About the Role:

The Payroll Delivery Engineering People Engineering (PE) leader plays a pivotal role in advancing Gustos mission ensuring every employee is paid accurately on time and in full compliance with thousands of regulations. As Gusto continues to scale Payroll Delivery is evolving from a set of product workflows into a resilient high-scale financial platform that powers every payment made through Gusto and its partners.

As the PE for Payroll Delivery youll lead and empower a team of engineers responsible for the systems that keep Gustos payroll engine running seamlessly. Youll partner with engineering product and operations leaders across Pay Group to shape the vision strategy and execution for one of Gustos most critical domains. This role blends hands-on technical leadership systems architecture and people development. Youll modernize legacy systems improve reliability and scalability and enable the next generation of payroll experiences. Youll create an environment where engineers thrive bring clarity to complex challenges and ensure the team delivers with both speed and excellence. This is a rare opportunity to lead at the center of Gustos mission building the foundation that ensures millions of employees get paid correctly while defining how Gusto delivers payroll at scale.

About the Team:

The Payroll Delivery team sits at the core of Gustos Pay Group organization powering the movement of billions of dollars in payroll payments every month. Our systems handle payment calculations funding flows and compliance logic that span thousands of jurisdictions and multiple product surfaces. The team collaborates closely with partners across Tax Time and Contractor Payments to ensure seamless compliant and scalable payroll experiences.

The work is both deeply technical and deeply impactful requiring precision foresight and empathy. Youll join a collaborative values-driven group of engineers product managers designers and operations experts who are passionate about simplifying complex financial systems. Together were building the next generation of payroll delivery scalable reliable and designed for the future of work.

Heres what youll do day-to-day:

• Lead and grow a team of engineers responsible for Gustos core payroll delivery systems fostering a culture of ownership inclusion and high performance.
• Define and execute the technical vision for payroll delivery ensuring scalability resilience and accuracy across high-volume financial workflows.
• Modernize legacy systems while maintaining reliability for millions of payroll transactions.
• Partner with Product Design and Operations leaders to align on priorities and ensure technical decisions balance speed compliance and long-term maintainability.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple domains and lead architectural strategy for distributed systems that handle complex data and regulatory requirements.
• Improve system observability incident response and operational excellence through automation and thoughtful design.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews technical discussions and feedback while promoting best practices in testing reliability and performance.
• Collaborate across the organization to align engineering practices drive clarity and shape Gustos long-term payroll platform strategy.

Heres what were looking for:

• 10 years of software engineering experience including leading technically complex initiatives across multiple teams and systems.
• 4 years of full-time experience as an Engineering PE managing and developing product engineering team(s).
• Proven track record of designing building and maintaining mission-critical high-volume transactional systems ideally within payroll tax or financial domains.
• Deep experience designing APIs data models and distributed systems that perform reliably at scale.
• Experience driving multi-quarter technical strategy coordinating dependencies across teams and influencing product roadmaps through strong technical insight.
• Demonstrated success improving system observability incident response and operational excellence through automation and design.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills with the ability to align engineers PMs and operational partners around complex technical trade-offs.
• Proven ability to build and sustain high-performing teams that deliver meaningful impact and foster trust accountability and long-term success.
• Skilled at navigating ambiguity simplifying complexity and driving clarity in evolving technical landscapes.
• Bonus experience includes modernizing legacy systems introducing automation or AI into business processes or working within regulated financial or fintech environments.
• Strategic systems thinker who connects product goals architecture evolution and operational excellence.
• First-principled and practical leader who balances constraints and drives effective solutions.
• Execution-oriented technical expert who blends technical depth with delivery discipline.
• Architect for resilience and scale ensuring reliability and maintainability in high-volume systems.
• Cross-functional influencer who aligns diverse stakeholders and unifies long-term strategy.
• Engineering excellence advocate who elevates craftsmanship documentation and testing standards.
• Product-minded engineer who focuses on customer value and business impact.
• Calm pragmatic problem solver who leads with focus optimism and clarity through complexity.

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $163000/yr to $204000/yr in Denver (plus most remote locations) and $198000/yr to $247000/yr 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.

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 Gustos 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 its 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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