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.
About the Role:
This role is ideal for a People Partner who thrives in dynamic environments and is energized by the opportunity to shape strategy and translate it into meaningful, hands-on impact. As Gusto continues to evolve toward an AI-native operating model, we’re looking for a Senior People Partner who can design people systems that scale intelligently—combining empathy, data, and automation to strengthen the employee experience.
You will support teams within the Foundations group, including Finance, Accounting, Business Operations, Legal and Compliance. These distributed teams provide critical services within and across Gusto, leading initiatives focused on business strategy, operational excellence and innovation. In this highly visible role, you’ll serve as a strategic advisor, guiding senior leaders through org design, change management, and workforce transformation. You’ll use people data and AI-enabled insights to anticipate needs, identify patterns, and co-create scalable solutions that elevate both performance and trust.
As a strategic partner, you’ll collaborate across People functions to design integrated, forward-looking solutions that align with business goals. You’ll lead initiatives that elevate performance, scale leadership, and enhance the experience for every Gustie, ensuring Gusto’s transformation toward an AI-native future remains grounded in humanity, equity, and purpose.
This is a unique opportunity to help shape the next generation of People practices within one of Gusto’s most critical organizations—driving growth, strengthening engagement, and scaling leadership at the intersection of technology and human connection.
About the Team:
Gusto’s People Team is growing and scaling with the company through integrated, intelligent systems that keep humans in the driver’s seat of our AI-accelerated future.
We’re focused on creating equitable outcomes at scale—pairing insight and innovation to ensure technology amplifies fairness, belonging, and impact.
Together, we partner across the business to make data-driven, people-centered decisions that align strategy with the needs of every Gustie, driving a workplace that is positive, engaging, and values-driven.
Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:
- Act as a strategic advisor and thought partner to business leaders, helping them navigate performance, scaling, and leadership effectiveness in an AI-native, data-rich environment.
- Lead org design and workforce planning using both human insight and AI-driven analytics to forecast capability needs, identify talent gaps, and build future-ready teams.
- Guide teams through change management and digital transformation efforts — ensuring clarity, inclusion, and engagement as automation reshapes workflows.
- Champion an inclusive and equitable employee experience, embedding fairness and transparency into tech-enabled systems and processes.
- Partner across Invite, Talent Development, Compensation, Benefits, ER, and Legal to design integrated, AI-informed people strategies aligned to business goals.
- Translate data and insights into actionable recommendations, using people analytics and predictive tools to measure impact and iterate on programs.
- Navigate complex people situations with judgment, empathy, and ethical integrity — balancing speed and compliance with trust and care.
Here’s what we're looking for:
- 6+ years of progressive HR/People Partner experience, including 3–5 years in strategic HRBP roles supporting Directors, VPS, and above; experience supporting high-volume, operational, or customer-facing teams is strongly preferred
- Strategic business partner mindset with the ability to align People strategies to business goals and translate complexity into clear, data-informed action.
- Strong org design and change leadership experience, including helping teams navigate growth, restructuring, or role evolution in dynamic or tech-enabled environments.
- Fluency in AI-native ways of working — comfortable leveraging analytics, automation, and insight platforms to guide decision-making and monitor outcomes.
- Experience dealing with complex employee relations issues, specifically with leaders and senior-level knowledge workers
- Proven ability to coach and influence senior leaders through human + system transformation — blending empathy with operational rigor.
- Collaborative systems thinker with experience partnering cross-functionally to implement cohesive, scalable people solutions.
- Deep commitment to equity and inclusion, ensuring technology enhances — not replaces — fairness, representation, and belonging.
- Resilient, ethical, and calm under pressure, with a bias toward problem-solving, learning, and continuous improvement.
Compensation:
Our cash compensation amount for this role is $154,045 to $189,989/year in Denver, and $181,275 to $223,573 for San Francisco & New York. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, 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.
Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer.
Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice.
Top Skills
Gusto San Francisco, California, USA Office
Gusto's San Francisco office is located in a vibrant, up-and-coming area nestled between Potrero Hill and the bay. Formerly a shipbuilding hub dating back to the 1800s, this dockside area retains an industrial vibe. Gusties drive, bike, or take public transportation to our office.
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