Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure

About Gusto

At Gusto, we’re on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff—like payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR—so owners can focus on their craft and customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we’re proud to support more than 400,000 small businesses across the country, and we’re building a workplace that represents and celebrates the customers we serve. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

Job Summary

At Gusto, we are looking for a forward thinking technical leader to shape the next generation of our compute (Kubernetes) and networking (service mesh) platforms. This role is for someone who loves building foundational systems that empower hundreds of engineers to move faster, safer, and smarter. You will define the long-term vision for how services run and communicate at Gusto, ensuring reliability, scalability, and developer delight at every layer.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and drive the vision for Gusto’s compute and networking platforms by setting the strategy for Kubernetes, service mesh, and related systems that power our global SaaS platform.
• Lead architecture design, performance optimization, and security hardening of distributed systems at scale.
• Partner with engineering leaders to translate broad organizational goals into concrete, measurable technical outcomes.
• Treat infrastructure as a product by focusing on the developer experience, simplifying workflows, and accelerating delivery.
• Serve as a mentor and force multiplier by growing the skills of mid level engineers through coaching, pairing, and modeling best practices.
• Communicate with clarity by simplifying complex concepts and building alignment across teams and functions.
• Lead incident response and ensure our systems meet the highest standards of availability and resiliency.

Requirements

• 12 or more years of experience in Infrastructure, Platform, or Site Reliability Engineering roles operating large scale distributed systems.
• Proven hands-on coding experience in production environments and the ability to contribute directly to system development and automation.
• Deep expertise running, scaling, and securing Kubernetes and service mesh technologies such as Istio, Envoy, or Cilium in production.
• A demonstrated record of designing highly available systems that balance reliability, observability, and developer velocity.
• Mastery of Infrastructure as Code using tools such as Terraform or Crossplane, with experience managing complex state for large engineering organizations.
• Experience owning and evolving twenty four seven SaaS infrastructure including monitoring, alerting, and performance analysis.
• A systems thinking mindset that identifies small levers capable of creating meaningful organizational impact.
• Exceptional communication skills that simplify complex ideas and bring teams together around a shared vision.
• A strong bias toward action, resilience in the face of ambiguity, and the ability to transform big ideas into reality.