Head of Engineering, Commerce

About the Role:

At Gusto, we help more than 300,000 small businesses create great places to work for their people. We do this through modern payroll, employee benefits, expert HR, and financial services. 

Gusto’s mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life. Gusto has built the first modern, all-in-one people platform, bringing together Payroll, Benefits, HR and Employee Onboarding under one roof.  We provide a full-service solution including software, expert support, and a variety of business services under one room, designed around our customers. Gusto is growing faster than any other company in its space.

About the Team:

Gusto is looking for a senior engineering leader to drive and execute the cross-functional strategy for our Commerce team. The Commerce team is responsible for the merchandising of Gusto Products, surfacing the right product offerings to our customers, and billing and invoicing the customers for the services that they have purchased. This role will be empowered by our Head of Engineering. It will play a critical role in how Gusto can effectively monetize the value Gusto delivers to our customers.  

To be successful in this role, you’ll need to have: 

• Demonstrated experience scaling platform products, including proven strategies to drive internal adoption of new methods, patterns, and capabilities 
• Strong technical acumen with the ability to understand and debate tradeoffs and approaches in building scalable architecture and data models
• Sharp skills as a builder — even as you’ve become a strategic leader, you are fundamentally a builder who can jump into problem-solving with team members when they need support
• High standard, systems-first approach, and strong point of view for the user experience informed by customer empathy, research, data, and customer support insights
• Led highly distributed engineering teams and managers for a minimum of 5 years, with hands-on development experience for a minimum of 10 years
• Strong product opinions, including the ability to tell a product story that is clear and inspiring; work with teams to map dependencies, risks, and tradeoffs to increase velocity and make the vision real
• The ability to inspire and motivate a cross-functional team, including PMs, designers, engineers, data scientists, and other partners
• Tenacity, directness, and the ability to build relationships across the organization - including with app leads and execs - designed to increase understanding of what we’re doing and why, and to drive the velocity of adoption of our platform capabilities

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Drive the cross-functional strategy, execution, and impact for Commerce teams in partnership with Product, Design, and Data leadership 
• Work across the company to drive understanding and adoption of platform capabilities and patterns in a systematic, measurable way across Gusto
• Build a culture of enthusiasm for our platform work that leads to greater productivity and higher quality and cohesion of the experiences we ship to customers
• Empower a team of senior engineers - operating in an architect capacity as well as engineering people empowerers (managers) - creating alignment, clarity, and high morale; drive quick but informed decision making and helping them get unblocked
• As a key stakeholder, contribute to the broader Gusto communication of vision, strategy, and stakeholder alignment via monthly and quarterly reviews 
• Hold a high standard for our User Experience by thinking across our stack (data models and architectural decisions that also impact UI) and are a voice for front-end excellence
• Getting in the weeds with senior IC leaders across engineering, design, data, and product to discuss trade-offs, define the green path, and help advance great decisions

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 10+ years working on high-growth digital experiences, with at least four years focused on platform features
• Demonstrated experience scaling platform products end-to-end (architecture to UI) at a company with a modern tech stack
• Ideal candidates will have seen a platform through a period of growth, transition, or change and will have proven methodologies and tangible examples of how they’ve driven adoption
• Technical leader who can bridge technology and business and can speak to the impact they’ve had in specific, tangible, and non-jargon-y terms
• Great collaborator who knows how to work effectively with cross-functional partners and drive alignment
• Has likely held senior leadership titles with a focus on platform products; product-minded leaders in other crafts who fit the profile are also welcome to apply
• Excellent technical acumen with the ability to architect, design, and discuss tradeoffs 
• Strong opinions and high standards around the user experience — is particularly adept at thinking about systems, cohesiveness, and how to approach governance
• Has managed senior people in the past and knows how to align them, when to give space, and when/how to coach and motivate

Our cash compensation amount for this role is $214,000-$246,000 in Denver & most major metro locations, and $251,000 to $289,000 for San Francisco & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.