Senior Product Design Manager, Payroll

About the Role

For the hundreds of thousands of small businesses we serve, our mission starts with one of their most critical responsibilities: paying their team. As the Senior Product Design Manager, Payroll, you’ll lead design for one of Gusto’s most complex and business-critical product areas, shaping the future of a product that millions of people rely on for financial stability and personal prosperity.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Lead end-to-end design for Payroll, shaping experiences that help small businesses pay their teams properly, on time, and with confidence.
• Define and communicate the long-term UX vision for Payroll, and rally multiple teams around it.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Data, Ops and others to set strategy and roadmaps.
• Lead AI and automation initiatives that simplify payroll and reduce manual work, without compromising accuracy or trust.
• Collaborate with Research and Data to uncover customer insights and translate them into clear, actionable UX priorities.
• Influence product and technical roadmaps by advocating for design quality, customer needs, and long-term system health.
• Raise the bar for interaction and visual design, ensuring experiences are clear, polished, and robust across edge cases.
• Define and scale shared patterns, principles, and standards that promote consistency and help teams progress faster.
• Manage and grow a team of designers, providing mentorship, clear direction, and hands-on support across multiple pods.
• Ensure payroll integrates seamlessly with other add-ons in Gusto’s People Platform, including Time & Attendance and third-party tools.

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 8–10+ years of product design experience, with at least 3 years in a people management role.
• Experience leading design direction across multiple teams and influencing product strategy.
• Proven ability to drive alignment, influence cross-functional partners, and represent design in strategic conversations.
• Experience working on B2B, B2C, or SaaS products—ideally in complex, regulated domains.
• Deep systems thinking, with experience turning complex workflows into clear, scalable, and intuitive experiences.
• A portfolio that demonstrates high-quality UX and visual design craft.
• Experience contributing to or evolving a design system—components, patterns, interaction models, and visual standards.
• Familiarity with AI tools and workflows that support design exploration, prototyping, or process efficiency.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity while balancing long-term vision with short-term execution.
• Clear, direct communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to explain decisions and influence partners and stakeholders.
• A genuine bond to Gusto’s mission and the needs of small businesses.

Compensation Details

Our cash compensation range for this role is $172,000/yr to $215,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $202,000/yr to $253,000/yr in San Francisco, Seattle & New York.