Senior Staff Designer, Web Experiences

at Gusto, Inc.

San Franscisco

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 500,000 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.

About Design at Gusto

Design at Gusto is made up of over 80 creative, collaborative people who care deeply about our mission to empower small businesses and their employees. We're a cross-functional group that is always looking for opportunities to build understanding and empathy for the people who use Gusto. We don't care much about swim lanes and though we care deeply about quality and craft, we are never precious about it. We work closely with cross-functional partners in Product, Engineering, Data, and Marketing to design, build, and ship experiences that make a real difference. We believe great design can make hard things possible, even delightful.

We are building an AI-native design organization — and we mean that seriously. We're looking for designers who are already working this way: using AI to prototype ideas quickly, shorten customer feedback loops, and ship quality UX directly to customers. This isn't a future aspiration — it's how we work now, and it's changing what the design role looks like at Gusto and across the industry.

About the Opportunity

Digital experiences are where our brand comes to life. Layout, motion, interaction, and visual design aren't finishing touches—they're the work. They're how we earn trust, convey clarity, and make people feel something.

Gusto is expanding our in-house creative studio inside our fast-moving, late-stage startup. We design high-impact web experiences, campaign landing pages, interactive brand moments, and digital storytelling—and we partner closely with marketing and product teams to bring those experiences to life where our audience engages. It's common to shift between a polished, high-craft web experience and fast-turn campaign work in the same week.

We're looking for a Senior Staff Designer, Web Experiences who is a hands-on maker: someone who loves designing for the web, takes real ownership of the final experience, and wants to help shape how our brand shows up across our digital touchpoints. This is a senior individual contributor role, focused on interactive craft, design systems, and brand storytelling.

In this role, you'll own digital experiences from wireframe through high-fidelity prototype and production handoff. You'll make judgment calls about layout, interaction, motion, typography, and responsive behavior. You'll collaborate closely with engineers, marketers, and cross-functional partners to produce great work that defines our brand and has real impact. And you'll help us raise the bar while also making the work easier to scale—through better design systems, smarter component libraries, and mindful use of modern tools.

If you’re energized by being close to the work, care deeply about preference, and enjoy improving both the output and the process, this role will be a impressive fit.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day

Design responsive web experiences for marketing pages, campaign landing pages, micro-sites, and interactive brand moments
Build and integrate AI to evolve a modular web design system and Figma component libraries for streamlined content management
Craft interactive prototypes and motion-rich experiences that translate complex ideas into compelling visual narratives
Use AI-powered tools to build the foundation of web design system, test, and refine interactive experiences
Collaborate with marketers, product teams, and cross-functional partners from concept through launch
Build, customize, and create rich visual experiences directly within our CMS platform
Use modern design and AI-enabled workflows to explore, iterate, and produce more capably
Maintain accessibility standards and ensure experiences perform across devices and browsers

Here’s what we’re looking for

8+ years of experience designing interactive or digital experiences for brand, agency, or in-house creative teams
Expert-level fluency in Figma (systems, components, prototyping) and Adobe Creative Suite
Fluency in AI-powered tools to build systems, prototypes and improve experiences
Deep experience working within a CMS—able to build, customize, and create rich, interactive, and engaging visual experiences directly in the platform
A portfolio that demonstrates robust interactive craft, thoughtful design systems, and range across web experiences
Sharp instincts for typography, layout, motion, visual hierarchy, and responsive design
Comfort transitioning between polished, high-craft brand experiences and fast-turn campaign work
Collaboration skills with engineering, creative, and marketing teams are important.
A maker mindset—you enjoy improving how work gets made, not just making the work itself

Compensation Details

At Gusto, we strive to provide rewards that empower employees to achieve their financial and personal goals. We offer competitive compensation packages with a strong emphasis on equity based compensation (ownership in Gusto). To learn more about Gusto’s compensation philosophy and benefits offerings please view our Total Rewards Approach page.

Our cash compensation range for this role is $172,000/yr to $215,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $202,000/yr to $253,000/yr in San Francisco, Seattle & 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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Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice.