Staff Product Designer, Benefits
Gusto, San Francisco, CA, United States
About the Company
At Gusto, we help small businesses thrive by providing a unified platform for payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance.
About the Role We’re hiring a Staff Product Designer for our Benefits team to design and launch a new product offering. Your focus will be to simplify benefits for small businesses, turning complex processes into clear, human‑centered experiences.
About the Team The Design team at Gusto includes over 80 people working cross‑functionally on product, engineering, data, and marketing to create impactful experiences. We adopt AI‑native workflows and prioritize iterative, data‑driven design.
Day‑to‑Day Responsibilities
Lead 0→1 discovery and design for a new Benefits product offering—from problem framing to MVP definition—grounded in real employer and employee workflows.
Design end‑to‑end service experiences across employer, employee, and internal ops workflows, identifying where AI can reduce complexity while keeping decisions clear and controllable.
Design AI‑assisted decision moments that help customers choose and act with confidence.
Define the system that makes AI safe and scalable: objects, rules, states, exception paths, and guardrails for when AI should defer to humans.
Make data legible and operational: shape the information model and UX so humans and AI can collaborate—clean inputs, clear outputs, structured handoffs that reduce errors and rework.
Build product feedback loops that improve AI quality over time: define success metrics, evaluation signals, and human‑in‑the‑loop review patterns to tune guidance, routing, and automation.
Design in code to ship faster: use AI‑assisted dev tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code) to prototype and deliver production‑quality UI with engineering teams.
Qualifications
Partner cross‑functionally to define human‑in‑the‑loop workflows and set principles for fairness, privacy, and trust.
Design with AI as core material—prototyping, refining prompts, integrating AI behaviors that adapt responsibly to user context; guide teams in balancing automation with transparency and control.
Redesign service blueprints where AI plays an active role—automating routine workflows and escalating complex cases to humans with transparency and context.
Define area strategy using measurable bets and experimentation; partner with Analytics and AI teams to track and evaluate impact.
Scale quality through reusable patterns, thoughtful critique, and mentorship; balance exploration with delivery.
Influence cross‑functional strategy across teams; resolve complex trade‑offs and guide design through ambiguity.
Coach across teams, build onboarding and training programs, and raise the bar for craft and systems thinking.
Compensation & Benefits Cash compensation ranges for this role: $146,000‑$183,000 per year in Denver and most remote locations; $177,000‑$222,000 per year in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. Final offers depend on experience and other factors. We also offer equity and a comprehensive benefits package.
Work Environment & Policies Employees in Denver, San Francisco, and New York are expected to work from the office 2‑3 days per week or more, in accordance with company policy. Hybrid employees must maintain reliable internet access. All employees undergo a standard hiring process that includes required legal safeguards and accommodations for disabilities.
Equal Opportunity Employer Gusto is an equal‑opportunity employer and does not discriminate on any protected basis. We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and are committed to a fair hiring process.
Privacy Notice Gusto collects and processes personal information as part of the application process subject to its Applicant Privacy Notice.
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About the Role We’re hiring a Staff Product Designer for our Benefits team to design and launch a new product offering. Your focus will be to simplify benefits for small businesses, turning complex processes into clear, human‑centered experiences.
About the Team The Design team at Gusto includes over 80 people working cross‑functionally on product, engineering, data, and marketing to create impactful experiences. We adopt AI‑native workflows and prioritize iterative, data‑driven design.
Day‑to‑Day Responsibilities
Lead 0→1 discovery and design for a new Benefits product offering—from problem framing to MVP definition—grounded in real employer and employee workflows.
Design end‑to‑end service experiences across employer, employee, and internal ops workflows, identifying where AI can reduce complexity while keeping decisions clear and controllable.
Design AI‑assisted decision moments that help customers choose and act with confidence.
Define the system that makes AI safe and scalable: objects, rules, states, exception paths, and guardrails for when AI should defer to humans.
Make data legible and operational: shape the information model and UX so humans and AI can collaborate—clean inputs, clear outputs, structured handoffs that reduce errors and rework.
Build product feedback loops that improve AI quality over time: define success metrics, evaluation signals, and human‑in‑the‑loop review patterns to tune guidance, routing, and automation.
Design in code to ship faster: use AI‑assisted dev tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code) to prototype and deliver production‑quality UI with engineering teams.
Qualifications
Partner cross‑functionally to define human‑in‑the‑loop workflows and set principles for fairness, privacy, and trust.
Design with AI as core material—prototyping, refining prompts, integrating AI behaviors that adapt responsibly to user context; guide teams in balancing automation with transparency and control.
Redesign service blueprints where AI plays an active role—automating routine workflows and escalating complex cases to humans with transparency and context.
Define area strategy using measurable bets and experimentation; partner with Analytics and AI teams to track and evaluate impact.
Scale quality through reusable patterns, thoughtful critique, and mentorship; balance exploration with delivery.
Influence cross‑functional strategy across teams; resolve complex trade‑offs and guide design through ambiguity.
Coach across teams, build onboarding and training programs, and raise the bar for craft and systems thinking.
Compensation & Benefits Cash compensation ranges for this role: $146,000‑$183,000 per year in Denver and most remote locations; $177,000‑$222,000 per year in San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. Final offers depend on experience and other factors. We also offer equity and a comprehensive benefits package.
Work Environment & Policies Employees in Denver, San Francisco, and New York are expected to work from the office 2‑3 days per week or more, in accordance with company policy. Hybrid employees must maintain reliable internet access. All employees undergo a standard hiring process that includes required legal safeguards and accommodations for disabilities.
Equal Opportunity Employer Gusto is an equal‑opportunity employer and does not discriminate on any protected basis. We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and are committed to a fair hiring process.
Privacy Notice Gusto collects and processes personal information as part of the application process subject to its Applicant Privacy Notice.
#J-18808-Ljbffr