Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Gusto is on a mission to grow the small business economy by handling payroll, health insurance, and HR. The Product Design Manager for Payroll will lead design initiatives for a critical product area, ensuring a seamless user experience for small businesses while managing a team of designers.
Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end design for Payroll — shaping experiences that help small businesses pay their teams correctly, on time, and with confidence
- Define and communicate the long-term UX vision for Payroll, and rally multiple teams around it
- Partner with Product, Engineering, Data, Ops and others to set strategy and roadmaps
- Lead product initiatives where AI and automation are central to the user experience, simplifying payroll and reducing manual work without compromising accuracy or trust
- Collaborate with Research and Data to uncover customer insights and translate them into clear, actionable UX priorities
- Influence product and technical roadmaps by advocating for design quality, customer needs, and long-term system health
- Set the quality and judgment standard for all design work — whether AI-assisted or not — including when to push further and when outputs meet the bar
- Define and scale shared patterns, principles, and standards that promote quality, consistency, and velocity
- Manage and grow a team of designers, providing mentorship, clear direction, and hands-on support across the team
- Champion the Payroll experience as the foundation of Gusto's broader People Platform, ensuring seamless integration across Benefits, Time & Attendance, and third-party tools
Skills
- 8–10+ years of product design experience, with at least 3 years leading and managing design teams
- Experience designing in complex domains i.e. financial products, healthcare, or similarly regulated environments
- Experience setting UX direction across multiple teams and influencing product strategy — not just executing on it
- Experience leading product initiatives where AI or automation is central to the user experience — including how to represent uncertainty, surface errors gracefully, and preserve user agency when automation gets it wrong, particularly in high-stakes contexts
- Demonstrated ability to assess AI-generated design directions: knowing when to use them, when to override them, and how to raise the quality bar on AI outputs
- Proven ability to drive alignment across cross-functional partners and represent design in high-stakes, strategic conversations
- Deep systems thinking, with a track record of turning interconnected, complex workflows into experiences that feel simple and intuitive
- Experience leading a team through an AI workflow transition — not just adopting AI personally, but changing how a team works, including establishing new norms and standards
- Clear, direct communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to explain design decisions and influence partners at all levels
- A genuine bond to Gusto's mission and the needs of small businesses
Benefits
- All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success.
- 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).
Company Overview