Gusto · 3 hours ago
Principal Software Engineer - Payroll
Boston, MA
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$214K/yr - $264K/yr
15+ years expGusto is on a mission to grow the small business economy by handling payroll and HR services for small businesses. The Principal Engineer for the Contractors team will design, build, and scale Gusto’s Payroll product while collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver impactful features.
Bookkeeping and PayrollEmployee BenefitsEnterprise SoftwareFinancial ServicesFinTechHuman ResourcesSaaSSoftware
Responsibilities
Architect, build, and maintain scalable, secure, and resilient backend systems to support Gusto’s Payroll products
Function as a Technical Lead across multiple teams in Pay Group, helping us keep engineers unblocked and deliver high-quality work supporting our long-term goals
Help scale one of the largest Ruby/Rails and TypeScript/React applications in the world
Collaborate on complex and ambiguous problems with partnerships from Engineering, Product Management, Design, Data Science, Compliance, Operations, and other cross-functional teams
Mentor and grow fellow engineers working to create holistic and scalable solutions
Drive the product development process from concept to launch, delivering delightful products that make payroll, taxes, and compliance simple and easy
Engage in a highly supportive environment working with others to drive productivity and innovation
Qualification
Required
15+ years of professional software development experience
Experience as a tech lead, overseeing and successfully delivering projects that span multiple teams
Enthusiasm for a collaborative, test-driven development environment
Proven experience building and maintaining resilient backend systems that support customer-facing products, including optimizing existing systems for performance, reliability, and scalability
Ability to produce maintainable, structured, and well-documented code
Expertise in developing and maintaining RESTful APIs, GraphQL endpoints, and backend services, ensuring seamless integration with frontend systems and third-party services
Demonstrated ability in scaling engineering organizations, with a strong focus on individual and team development and mentorship
Experience in highly cross-functional environments working on highly complex products
Ability to clearly communicate technical complexity and facilitate informed trade-offs among stakeholders
Experience using AI tools to build, test, and iterate on products quickly
Understanding of how to evaluate AI-driven outputs using clear success criteria
A commitment to staying current on emerging backend technologies and AI frameworks and patterns, regularly experimenting with new approaches
Willingness to contribute to shared tools or templates that enhance the speed and safety of AI experimentation
Benefits
Health insurance
401(k)
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
Recent News
General Catalyst
2025-12-30
Digital Commerce 360
2025-12-20
2025-12-19
Company data provided by crunchbase