Principal Product Manager, Payroll Engine


About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools. Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 300,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

About the Role:

We are looking for a customer and data driven Principal Product Manager to join our Payroll Engine team to help re-imagine and build the Payroll of the future. This team is responsible for our flagship product, Payroll, and owns all customer experiences and systems around compliance, taxes, payments, filings and more. As part of this team, you will closely collaborate with Engineers, Designers, Data Scientists, Compliance, Legal, and Operations partners to drive strategy, build products, and impact Gusto’s P&L.

About the Team:

The ideal candidate would have strong technical, analytical, and storytelling skills, as well as experience working in a highly regulated industry while building complex products at scale. Additionally, they would have experience leading large engineering and cross-functional teams, and balancing business, product, and technical goals in their team’s strategy & roadmap.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

  • Tackle complex and ambiguous problems in a highly regulated domain while partnering with Engineering, Design, Data Science, Compliance, Legal, Operations, and other cross-functional teams
  • Set goals and strategy then translate it into a roadmap, milestones, and requirements to drive alignment and excitement with your cross-functional partners and stakeholders
  • Understand, track and improve key product and business metrics
  • Work with key stakeholders across the company
  • Drive the product development process from concept to launch, ensuring timely delivery of high-quality products that delight customers and result in significant and measurable business impact

Here’s what we're looking for:

  • 7+ years of hands-on product management experience with a proven track record of building customer centric products
    • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills: ability to articulate and build business models and prioritization
    • Ability to set a strategy and translate it into a roadmap requirements and actionable plan
    • Ability to define and track metrics to successfully launch and land high impact features
    • Experienced driving at-scale features/improvements to mature products.
    • High attention to detail, strong bias for action and highly organized.
  • Experience working on products with high technical complexity and balancing technical goals with product goals
  • Ability to drive end-to-end execution with cross functional partners while building strong partnership and collaboration to garner buy-in across all levels
  • Experience in distilling complex and ambiguous problems into actionable solutions
  • Previous experience in a highly regulated domain and/or in Payroll is a plus
    • Experience at rapidly scaling companies preferred


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.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required.


Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you require assistance in filling out a Gusto job application, please reach out to candidate-accommodations@gusto.com.

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