Gusto, Inc. - Head of Design, Unified Service Platform

Denver, CO;San Francisco, CA$166k - $166k+ Equity1mo ago

In Office Director NA Software Art Director UX Designer Coaching B2B Close Claude Cursor

Requirements

• Experience managing and growing product designers — you've led a team, developed designers, run performance and growth, and built a healthy team culture. Managing across disciplines (e.g., content/conversation design alongside product design) is a well-developed plus. • Experience managing and growing product designers • Design leadership in ambiguity — you set direction and a high craft bar, co-own strategy with cross-functional peers, and hold a position when the right answer is unpopular. • Design • leadership • in ambiguity • AI-product judgment in consequential domains — you've shipped (or led teams that shipped) AI-mediated experiences in production, and can speak to uncertainty, errors, graceful failure, and human override. • AI-product judgment in consequential domains • Service design depth — real journey mapping and blueprinting on two-sided products with operational handoffs, not workshop exercises. • Service design depth • Hands-on AI fluency — you use AI-native tools yourself and can raise your team's fluency; you perceive AI as part of the craft, not separate from it. • Hands-on AI fluency • 12+ years of design experience, including 5+ years managing designers, with clear ownership of shipped work in a B2B SaaS environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and grow a team of three designers (product + conversation design) — own their development, careers, performance, and craft growth, and create the conditions for them to do their best work. • Lead, coach, and grow a team of three designers • Own design direction and quality across USP — set the vision and the bar, and be accountable for the team's outcomes, not just its output. • Own design direction and quality across USP • Stay hands-on where it matters most — as a player-coach, prototype and design the hardest flows and quartet-level artifacts yourself, not just review them; flex your hands-on time down as the team grows. • Stay hands-on where it matters most • Represent design on the USP quartet — co-lead product direction with PM, Engineering, and Data leaders; author strategy and POV in ambiguous spaces; drive convergence and close decisions. • Represent design on the USP quartet • Set the standard for AI-native service design. This includes how trust, uncertainty, graceful failure, and AI-human handoffs show up on the platform. You will identify when AI outputs are ready to ship, when a human is needed, and when outputs should not be sent out at all. • Guide service design end-to-end — journey mapping, blueprinting, and operational handoffs for a two-sided product — through your team. • Guide service design end-to-end • Champion an AI-native design practice — model and expect fluency with AI-native tools (Claude Code, Cursor, and comparable agentic tools) as part of the craft, and raise the floor for how the team designs. • Champion an AI-native design practice • Partner on hiring and team building as the team grows. • Partner on hiring and team building

Benefits

• 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.