Senior Product Design Manager, Design Systems

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools. Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 300,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

About the Role:

Gusto is looking for an experienced design leader to join our Design Systems team. We’re looking for someone who’s equally interested in building a thriving team and thoughtfully designed products for our customers.

This role will lead the design for Workbench, our design system. Workbench is the integral backbone to our product design practice and this leader will play a key role in leveling up the quality of our craft.

This is a player-coach role where your responsibilities will include both people management and product design. You’ll be involved in the entire product development process from setting the long term vision to initial strategic planning; all the way to launching and iterating on components that solve for real customer experiences.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Contribute to high-level strategic decisions around product design and development
• Establish and articulate design systems standards, usage guidelines and best practices to ensure a consistent and high quality user experience
• Provide design feedback to internal stakeholders that advocates for users and pushes the quality bar
• Ship with speed and consistency; you’ll need to have the ability to work on immediate needs while setting the future vision
• Coach, manage, and develop your team of designers
• Partner with PM and Engineering Leads to create a holistic system that works well for both our customers and our internal teams and establish approaches to measure the effectiveness of the system
• Collaborate with senior design leadership to set the overall design direction of the product and ensure the design systems aligns with the overall vision and direction of the product
• Inspire and educate the greater product design organization at Gusto to continue raising the bar on our experiences

Here’s what we're looking for:

• 8+ years' experience with at least 3 years focused on design systems
• Interest in and ability to work in a combination role: people management and contributing as an IC designer
• Strong, inclusive design background (accessibility in particular is important to us), with a track record of shipping high quality products and the systems that power them
• Someone with the technical proficiency to understand how to build and scale systems — we’re not looking for an engineer, but we do need someone who can understand technical concepts that are critical to shaping strategy and approach
• Ability to be pragmatic and solutions-oriented to ship iterative improvements to the system while balancing long term system integrity
• Strategic thinker who has experience working at different altitudes, across the entire customer journey
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills with the ability to rationalize the “why” behind design decisions
• Expertise collaborating with – and speaking the language of – product design, accessibility, engineering, brand design, and product management within the context of a design system

Bonus

• Experience leading a visual design refresh and setting up scalable foundational approaches
• Experience building a native mobile design system alongside a web design system
• Experience designing products for small business owners and their unique needs

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). Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $174,000 - $235,000/ year in Denver & most remote locations, and $204,000 - $254,000/ year for New York, Seattle and San Francisco. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas.

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you require assistance in filling out a Gusto job application, please reach out to [email protected].