Staff Software Engineer, Pricing and Packaging Engineering

About the role

, Inc.

This role focuses on architecting and delivering the internal systems that define how Gusto brings products and pricing to market. You will own the technical strategy and implementation for the Commerce Platform, ensuring it supports over half a million small businesses. The position requires close collaboration with product, data science, and engineering partners to build infrastructure that is both robust and adaptable. If you are motivated by platform-level challenges that directly influence business outcomes, this is the opportunity.

About Gusto

Gusto is dedicated to strengthening the small business economy by managing payroll, health insurance, retirement plans, and HR tasks. This allows business owners to concentrate on their core work and customers. The company operates from offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, supporting more than half a million businesses across the United States. Gusto is committed to building a workforce that reflects the diversity of its clients.

All full-time team members receive competitive base compensation, comprehensive benefits, and equity through RSUs, reflecting the company's belief that everyone contributing to its growth should share in its success. Specific offer details are based on role, level, and location. Additional information about the Total Rewards philosophy is available on the Gusto career site. The company also expects every employee to engage with AI tools relevant to their position and to develop fluency as these technologies evolve.

The Pricing and Packaging team is central to Gusto's Commerce infrastructure. It serves as the definitive source for all products, bundles, add-ons, subscriptions, pricing rules, and promotional discounts across Gusto's customer experience. The team manages the internal Commerce Platform, including the product catalog, promotion engine, subscription management, pricing experimentation, and entitlement services. These systems enable Growth and other teams to effectively launch and manage offerings. The group operates with a focus on reliability, adoption, and measurable business impact.

Daily Responsibilities

You will be responsible for the technical design and architecture of key commerce platform components. This includes the product catalog, promotion engine, subscription lifecycle, and entitlement systems. Your work will ensure these services are dependable, high-performing, and aligned with business requirements.

You will collaborate with product management and cross-functional engineering teams, such as Growth and Onboarding, to define the platform's technical roadmap. Your role will involve driving adoption of these platforms across Gusto to ensure consistency and efficiency.

The position involves leading complex, ambiguous initiatives from initial discovery through implementation and post-launch evaluation. You will own the full lifecycle of these projects, from requirements gathering to final outcomes.

You will mentor engineers through design and code reviews, as well as hands-on coaching. The goal is to foster a culture of craftsmanship and continuous improvement within the team.

You will establish and promote AI-augmented development practices. This includes using tools to accelerate engineering velocity and setting standards for team-wide use of these technologies.

You will work with Gusto's marketing and business teams to enhance the self-serve system for managing products, bundles, promotions, and discounts. This effort is intended to reduce time-to-market for new offerings.

You will define technical scope and requirements for large-scale initiatives. This involves solving intricate engineering problems and ensuring that solutions deliver measurable value to customers.

You will partner with cross-functional stakeholders to align platform capabilities with business objectives. This collaboration supports market-facing teams in delivering customer value.

Compensation Details

The target base salary for this position is between 195,000 USD and 230,000 USD. The role includes a target bonus of 20 percent. RSUs with an estimated value of 42,444 USD are granted over a four-year period. These figures are examples and offers are tailored based on role, level, and location.

Requirements

You bring 8 or more years of software development experience. Your background includes operating large-scale backend platform systems. You have a proven track record of owning multi-quarter projects that address complex engineering challenges and deliver measurable impact at scale.

You demonstrate strong abilities in distributed systems, API design, and service reliability practices. Your experience enables you to build systems that are scalable and maintainable.

Preferred Experience

You have experience in domains related to commerce, billing, subscription management, pricing, and packaging. This background helps you understand the specific needs of Gusto's customers and align technical solutions with business needs.

Tools and Skills

The role relies on strong architectural judgment, cross-team collaboration, and the ability to translate business needs into technical requirements. You communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.