Staff Software Engineer, Developer Productivity Async

About the role

This position centers on ownership of asynchronous workflows from initiation to completion. The primary objective is to elevate developer throughput by modernizing background systems and integrating AI-assisted tooling. Success is measured by the reliability and speed with which product engineers can deliver their work. You will be responsible for the entire lifecycle of async processes, ensuring they meet the demands of a high-growth engineering organization. You will partner closely with product and platform teams to ensure that asynchronous solutions scale predictably. The role demands a proactive approach to identifying and resolving systemic issues before they impact engineering velocity. You will act as a technical leader, guiding best practices and standards for async design across the engineering organization. This position is critical to enabling engineers to focus on business logic rather than infrastructure concerns.

About Gusto

Gusto is on a mission to strengthen the small business economy. The company handles complex functions such as payroll, health insurance, and 401(k) administration, allowing small business owners to concentrate on their craft and customers. Gusto supports over 500,000 small businesses across the United States, with offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York. The company is committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects the communities it serves. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, comprehensive benefits, and equity through RSUs, as Gusto believes everyone contributing to its growth should share in its success. Compensation for this role is targeted at $189,000-$210,000 for Denver and most remote locations, and $220,000-$250,000 for San Francisco and New York. Final offers are determined by experience and expertise. AI is an integral tool in Gusto's daily operations, and all team members are expected to engage with and develop their proficiency in these technologies.

What you'll do

• Architect and maintain resilient asynchronous pipelines that accelerate product engineering delivery.
• Lead migration initiatives for background processing systems, coordinating with multiple product teams.
• Define and analyze throughput metrics to identify systemic bottlenecks and prioritize infrastructure investments.
• Implement observability and automation patterns to improve the reliability of background job processing under heavy load.
• Collaborate with platform engineers to build intuitive abstractions that streamline async integration for all products.
• Utilize AI-driven diagnostics in incident response to reduce downtime and resolve async failures more efficiently.
• Design and implement robust retry and backpressure mechanisms to ensure system stability during peak demand.
• Partner with data teams to establish benchmarks for async job performance and reliability over time.
• Evaluate and adopt new technologies that enhance the efficiency of background task execution.
• Mentor junior engineers on asynchronous programming patterns and debugging techniques.
• Drive standardization across services to reduce complexity and improve maintainability.
• Conduct post-incident reviews to extract learnings and refine async system design.
• Optimize resource utilization to lower infrastructure costs without compromising performance.
• Facilitate cross-team workshops to align on async processing strategies and priorities.
• Ensure all solutions comply with security and data governance requirements.

Requirements

• A minimum of 10 years of software development experience with a strong systems-thinking mindset.
• The ability to translate complex technical challenges into clear plans that engage both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated skill in architectural decision-making and delivering robust solutions through code.
• Deep, hands-on experience with Ruby and Ruby on Rails, particularly regarding tools used in large-scale engineering environments.
• A collaborative mindset, functioning seamlessly as both a partner and a customer to cross-functional teams.
• A proven history of enhancing developer productivity through improved tooling, infrastructure, and strategic AI implementation.
• Experience managing high-traffic systems where uptime and reliability are critical.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for documenting processes and influencing technical direction.

Nice to have

• Contributions to open-source projects related to developer workflows and infrastructure.

Skills & tools

• Ruby
• Rails
• Asynchronous job processing
• Observability frameworks

Practical notes

• Please verify all details on the official application page before submitting your materials.