Principal Data Scientist at Gusto building measurement frameworks and predictive models for the payments platform. Focus on payments infrastructure, experimentation, and AI-native data products serving 400,000+ small businesses.
About Gusto
At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 400,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve.
All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.
AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process.
Small business owners trust Gusto with something fundamental: making sure their people get paid, on time, every time. As a Principal Data Scientist on the Payments team, you'll sit at the intersection of financial infrastructure and data science — translating the complexity of a high-scale payments ecosystem into the insights and models that shape how we build, operate, and improve our payments products.
In this role you will work closely with our Product, Engineering, Design, Finance, and other Data teams to become an expert in the data for your domain, define and track metrics that help us understand our business performance, and dive deep into our payments data to deliver insights and answer questions. You’ll also integrate AI-assisted practices to accelerate analysis, enhance rigor, and expand the reach of insights across Gusto.
This is a role for someone who's equally comfortable diving into ledger-level transaction data and standing in front of a payments engineering team to influence architecture decisions. If you want your work to directly protect and improve the financial lives of hundreds of thousands of small businesses, this is the role.
Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:
Here’s what we're looking for:
Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $184,000/yr - $210,000/yr in Denver, and $217,000/yr - $250,000 for San Francisco and New York. 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.
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. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.
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. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.
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