Head of Design, Unified Service Platform

<div class="content-intro"><p style="line-height: 1.2;">&nbsp;</p> <hr> <p><strong>About Gusto</strong></p> <p>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.</p> <p>&nbsp;<br>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<a href="https://gusto.com/about/careers/total-rewards" target="_blank"> <u>Total Rewards philosophy</u></a>.</p> <p>&nbsp;<br>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.</p></div><p><strong>About Design at Gusto&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><strong>About the Role:</strong></p> <p>Gusto's Unified Service Platform (USP) is the infrastructure behind how small businesses get help when it matters most — AI-driven support, multi-channel service, and the human expertise that steps in when AI isn't enough. We're looking for a Head of Design to lead the design team behind it and set the bar for what AI-native service design looks like at Gusto.</p> <p>This is a people-leadership role. You'll lead, coach, and grow a small, high-caliber team of three designers — spanning product design and conversation design — and you'll be accountable for the quality, direction, and delivery of design across the platform. You'll also be the design voice on the USP quartet, peer-to-peer with PM, Engineering, and Data leaders — authoring strategy in ambiguous spaces and spearheading cross-functional convergence. And it's a genuine player-coach role: alongside leading the team, you'll stay hands-on on the highest-leverage design work yourself.</p> <p>If you want to build and lead the team defining AI-native service design — at the exact moment the category is being invented — this is that role.</p> <p><strong>About the Team:</strong></p> <p>The Unified Service Platform team builds the experiences that establish how Gusto customers get help — across self-service, in-product guidance, multi-channel support, and the AI and human experts behind all of it. You'll lead a team of three designers (product and conversation design) within a cross-functional group of engineers, PMs, and data partners, designing for both the small business owners who rely on Gusto and the experts who serve them. Design on USP is a strategic function — embedded in product direction from day one, not brought in at the execution stage.</p> <p><strong>Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Lead, coach, and grow a team of three designers</strong> (product + conversation design) — own their development, careers, performance, and craft growth, and create the conditions for them to do their best work.</li> <li><strong>Own design direction and quality across USP</strong> — set the vision and the bar, and be accountable for the team's outcomes, not just its output.</li> <li><strong>Stay hands-on where it matters