Staff Software Engineer, Payroll Canada
Gusto, Inc. · San Francisco, CA
$163,000–$247,000from the description
Jul 20, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 22, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior backend engineering role focused on building Canadian payroll capabilities largely from the ground up on a Ruby on Rails platform. Day-to-day work centers on designing backend services for payroll calculations, compliance, and remittances, exposing that logic to the frontend via GraphQL APIs. Suits an experienced engineer comfortable owning complex domains end-to-end in regulated, fast-moving environments.
Staff level · 8+ years · Remote · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 4,250 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 2,550–6,400
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
Compensation is quoted as two geographic ranges: $163,000–$204,000 for Denver and most remote locations, and $197,000–$247,000 for San Francisco and New York. The min/max here span the full range across all locations.
Ruby on Rails is the stated platform for the backend services, making it a hard gate in practice; Ruby itself is described as 'strongly preferred but not required,' so it is marked preferred separately.
AI tool experience (LLMs, Claude Code, Cursor) is listed in the requirements block with firm language, making it a hard gate on the capability. Claude Code and Cursor are listed as interchangeable examples, so they are captured as one preferred skill with alternatives; LLMs is the broader required capability.
Payroll, tax, or compliance domain experience is explicitly called 'a plus' and is therefore preferred — it does not appear as a named tool and is omitted per the generic-concept rule.
The role is hybrid (2–3 days/week in office for Denver, SF, or NYC-based employees) but remote-eligible for candidates outside those cities, so remote is set to true.
The posting targets Canadian payroll work but the role itself is US-based (Gusto offices in Denver, SF, NYC, and remote-US locations).
Read the full posting
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