Senior Compensation Manager

<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 the role:&nbsp;</strong></p> <p>The Senior Compensation Manager is a core member of Gusto's People team, responsible for building and scaling the compensation programs that help us attract, retain, and reward top talent. This role exists to bring rigor, fairness, and strategic clarity to how Gusto thinks about pay — operating at the intersection of data, policy, and people.</p> <p>Operating with a systems-first, AI-native mindset, the Senior Compensation Manager uses automation, scalable workflows, and well-designed tooling to improve decision quality, ensure compliance, and reduce reliance on manual, one-off analysis. This role partners closely with HR Business Partners, Finance, Legal, and business leaders to ensure our compensation programs are grounded in market reality and aligned to our values.</p> <p>Success in this role is measured by the quality and fairness of compensation decisions, the scalability and reliability of our programs, and the degree to which the organization can operate with confidence — without constant intervention or heroics.</p> <p>Gusto's compensation function, built on first-principles thinking, is at an inflection point — scaling from early foundations to a mature, high-trust operation. You'll have real ownership to shape how we design and deliver compensation as the company grows.</p> <p><strong>Here's what you'll do day to day:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Develop, implement, and communicate Gusto's compensation programs, policies, and procedures, ensuring internal equity, external competitiveness, and alignment with business strategy.</li> <li>Partner with and influence key stakeholders — including HRBPs, Finance, and senior leadership — to translate compensation philosophy into clear, actionable programs.</li> <li>Lead annual compensation cycles (merit, equity refresh, benchmarking) and own the end-to-end process from data collection through communication.</li> <li>Perform market analyses and compensation studies using survey data (e.g., Radford/Aon, Mercer, Pave) to recommend pay ranges, job levels, and offer positioning.</li> <li>Use AI tools and automation thoughtfully to accelerate analysis, synthesize benchmarking data, and reduce planning and reporting load — while maintaining sound judgment around data quality and decision guardrails.</li> <li>Design and maintain scalable compensation workflows and tooling — automating recurring analyses, audit processes, and reporting so programs run reliably without manual intervention.</li> <li>Build and maintain compensation dashboards and data visualizations that give leaders real-time insight into pay equity, market positioning, and budget utilization.</li> <li>Craft competitive, compelling offers to attract top-tier talent, and build playbooks to help recruiters and HRBPs communicate Gusto's total rewards story.</li> <li>Ensure ongoing compliance with federal, state, and local pay regulations — including pay transparency laws, FLSA classification standards, and emerging pay equity requirements — and proactively flag legislative changes.</li> <li>Partner with People Operations to integrate and optimize HRIS and compensation tools, ensuring data accuracy and system scalability as the company grows.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Here's what we're looking for:</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>12+ years of experience</strong&gt