What's the salary range?

Gusto lists $163,000–$204,000 for this role.

How much experience is required?

At least 8 years of relevant experience for this Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure role.

Where is the role based?

Gusto is hiring for this position in Burlingame, CA - Hybrid; Denver, CO - Hybrid; New York, NY - Hybrid; San Francisco, CA - Hybrid.

What's the tech stack?

Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: Ruby on Rails.

What seniority level is this role?

Gusto targets staff-level candidates for this position.

Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure at Gusto

Joblaze summary

In this role, the Staff Software Engineer will design and implement backend services and APIs that facilitate financial transactions and integrations for Gusto Retirement. The position requires strong expertise in building data-heavy workflows, particularly within financial systems, and a hands-on approach to production code and operational support. Ideal candidates will have over eight years of experience and a collaborative mindset, as they will work closely with product and compliance teams. The Financial Infrastructure team emphasizes reliability and execution, making it suitable for engineers who thrive in complex, cross-functional environments.

Joblaze insights

Listed yesterday — first seen on Joblaze September 26, 2026. Last confirmed on Gusto's careers page September 27, 2026.
Salary band is in line with the typical range for Backend roles (median ~$180,000).
Starts at or below all 13 comparable staff backend roles in United States that list Ruby on Rails we track (median $200,000 across 5 companies).
Ruby on Rails appears in 4.8% of 293 comparable staff backend roles in United States.

Quick facts

Is the Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure role remote?: It's hybrid — Gusto expects some on-site time in Burlingame, CA - Hybrid; Denver, CO - Hybrid; New York, NY - Hybrid; San Francisco, CA - Hybrid.
What's the salary range?: Gusto lists $163,000–$204,000 for this role.
How much experience is required?: At least 8 years of relevant experience for this Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure role.
Where is the role based?: Gusto is hiring for this position in Burlingame, CA - Hybrid; Denver, CO - Hybrid; New York, NY - Hybrid; San Francisco, CA - Hybrid.
What's the tech stack?: Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: Ruby on Rails.
What seniority level is this role?: Gusto targets staff-level candidates for this position.
Is this full-time or contract?: Full-time for this Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure role at Gusto.

From the original posting

About Gusto

About the Role:

You’ll be a key engineer focused on building and owning the systems that move money and assets through Gusto Retirement. This is a very hands-on role: owning backend services and APIs end-to-end, shipping production code, and working through real financial edge cases. You’ll partner closely with product, compliance, and operations to turn complex financial requirements into reliable software. If you like working on core systems where correctness matters and enjoy getting things shipped, you’ll be a great fit.

About the Team:

The Financial Infrastructure team owns the core money and asset flow systems for Gusto Retirement. We’re a senior team that works on payments, settlements, tax and compliance integrations, and much more. The work is complex and often cross-functional, so we stay focused, collaborate closely, and keep tight ownership of what we build. We work closely with product and partner teams, but we’re responsible for execution and reliability end-to-end.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

Design, build, and ship services and APIs for money movement and financial integrations
Work on payments, settlements, reconciliation, and corrections involving real customer funds
Build and support critical workflows like payroll integration, KYB/KYC, 401k loans, billing and invoicing, and IRA
Partner with product, compliance, and operations to scope work and deliver production-ready solutions
Debug production issues and improve reliability, observability, and operational tooling
Collaborate with other engineering teams to integrate with shared systems and platforms
Mentor other engineers to help solve some of the hardest technical problems out there in very complex domains and at a large scale
Write clear, reliable, well-tested code that ships quickly and scales well
Build a product that our customers genuinely love

Here’s what we're looking for:

8+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production products or platforms
Strong experience with services, APIs, and data-heavy workflows.
Experience working on financial systems, payments, or other high-correctness domains (or the ability to ramp quickly).
Comfortable owning systems end-to-end, including production support and operational work.
Experience working closely with PMs and cross-functional partners to deliver scoped work.
Pragmatic, execution-focused approach to engineering.
Clear communicator and collaborative teammate.
Ability to mentor engineers to maximize their performance and impact
Experience with Ruby on Rails (or a comparable backend framework).

Bonus Points:

Experience leveraging AI tools or systems to accelerate development, improve testing, and deliver new product capabilities.
Curiosity and experimentation with emerging AI frameworks, applying and sharing best practices to evaluate and scale AI use safely across teams.

Please note that travel to Gusto's office for onboarding is required for this position. If you have any questions regarding this requirement, please share with your recruiter.

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $163,000–$204,000 in Denver & most remote locations, and $197,000–$247,000 for San Francisco & New York. Stock equity is additional. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale.

Standard company text repeated across Gusto's postings is omitted here.

Staff Software Engineer, Financial Infrastructure

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