Gusto · 7 hours ago
Staff Applied AI/ ML Engineer
Greater Seattle Area
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$230K/yr - $280K/yr
8+ years expGusto is on a mission to grow the small business economy by handling essential services like payroll and HR. They are seeking a Staff Applied AI/ ML Engineer to design robust AI/ML systems and services, collaborating across teams to enhance product direction and decision-making.
Bookkeeping and PayrollEmployee BenefitsEnterprise SoftwareFinancial ServicesFinTechHuman ResourcesSaaSSoftware
Responsibilities
Design and develop scalable, production-grade AI/ML models and services for complex business and customer experience problems
Lead technical strategy and architecture for key AI/ML domains, including model lifecycle, observability, safety, and evaluation
Collaborate cross-functionally to identify high-leverage AI/ML opportunities, translate them into actionable roadmaps, and deliver measurable outcomes
Build, harden, and operate platform capabilities that power customer journey experiences (e.g., personalization, assistance, routing, content selection)
Stay current with the latest AI/ML research; prototype, evaluate, and productionize new algorithms and techniques from academia and industry
Establish robust practices for validation, deployment, monitoring, explainability, and ongoing performance management
Communicate findings, roadmaps, tradeoffs, and impact clearly to executives and non-technical partners
Mentor engineers and scientists, fostering a culture of technical excellence and pragmatic innovation
Qualification
Required
8+ years of hands-on experience building and deploying end-to-end AI/ML systems in industry or academia
Deep expertise in one or more advanced ML areas (e.g., supervised/unsupervised learning, deep learning, NLP, LLMs, retrieval/RAG, reinforcement learning)
Proven track record delivering large, impactful AI/ML projects into production environments with measurable business and customer impact
Experience monitoring AI agents with an attention to safety/guardrails, evaluation frameworks, and sentiment/quality analysis is necessary for the Unified Service Platform roles but not required for our Growth positions
Proficiency with modern ML frameworks and tooling (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face) and cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS, or Azure)
Strong programming skills in Python and sound software engineering fundamentals (testing, code review, CI/CD, reliability)
Demonstrated leadership in cross-disciplinary settings and the ability to influence direction through technical depth and clarity
Excellent communication skills and strong product/business judgment
Preferred
Ph.D. or Master's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field is a plus
Hands-on experience building LLM-based applications and agentic AI workflows (e.g., Claude, Gemini, OpenAI), including prompt/retrieval design and evaluation, is a bonus
Benefits
Health insurance
401(k)s
Company
Gusto
Gusto is an HR and payroll platform that simplifies complex tasks, empowering businesses to focus on what matters most.
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Gusto has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (49)
2024 (54)
2023 (19)
2022 (37)
2021 (24)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$746.1MKey Investors
Friends & Family CapitalT. Rowe PriceAkkadian Ventures
2023-01-28Series Unknown
2022-05-12Series E· $55M
2021-08-10Series E· $175M
Leadership Team
Josh Reeves
Head of Gusto (CEO) and Co-Founder. Building Gusto for the Long Term.
Edward Kim
Co-founder and Head of Technology
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