Gusto, Inc.
Staff Product Designer, Design Systems
Job Summary
Gusto is seeking a Staff Design Systems designer to lead the development of native iOS and Android design systems, standardizing mobile applications and extending the web design language to native platforms. The role requires expertise in Figma, component creation, accessibility, and collaboration with engineering teams. The designer will define tokens, create components, support native experiences, and document design decisions. The position emphasizes thoughtful, inclusive design and close cross-team collaboration to enhance product experiences.
Required Skills
Benefits
Job Description
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 400,000 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 Design at Gusto:
Product Design at Gusto is made up of over 70 creative, collaborative people who care deeply about our mission to empower small businesses and their employees. We’re a cross-functional bunch focused on Design, Research, Writing, Ops and Front-end Development who are always looking for opportunities to build understanding and empathy for the people who use Gusto. We don’t care a whole lot about swim lanes and we work closely with our partners in Product, Engineering, Data, and Marketing to design, build and ship experiences that make a difference. We are passionate advocates for thoughtful, crafted, and inclusive experiences and we believe great design can make hard things possible, even delightful. Read more about Design at Gusto.
About the Role:
We're seeking a Staff Design Systems designer to pioneer our native iOS and Android design system, a key company priority that will transform how users experience our products. You'll standardize our existing mobile applications while building a cohesive visual language that extends our web design system to native experiences. The ideal candidate brings expertise in Figma component creation, token architecture, accessibility guidelines, documentation, and engineer collaboration to our highly collaborative team. This is your opportunity to shape our mobile future from the ground up.
About the Team:
Our design systems team is made up of designers and engineers who focus on creating and maintaining a rich set of Figma and coded components for our product teams across platforms and applications. The team is in an exciting space of reinvention as we evolve an existing design system into the next level of maturity. We are embedded within the design organization at Gusto, led by our CDO, Amy Thibodeau.
Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:
- Define and maintain semantic and functional tokens for the design system
- Create both Native and mobile-responsive simple and complex components, patterns, and templates in Figma
- Support Gusties in building and designing Native experiences with our Design System through Office Hours and Slack support.
- Work with our Engineering team to ensure component and pattern consistency and alignment across Figma, Native experiences, and React web views.
- Document and publish design decisions and guidance
- Represent a service mindset with collaborative communication skills
Here’s what we're looking for:
- Design Systems Experience: Have 3+ years of experience working on a mobile design systems team supporting product design teams through the full life cycle of design system creation, implementation, and maintenance. Experience designing and building both mobile web and Native components is required.
- Product Design Experience: 5+ years experience working on a product design team
- Technical Acumen: The ability to pair effectively with our engineering team designing component APIs.
- Accessibility Minded: A deep understanding of Accessibility guidelines and the ability to implement WCAG AA compliant components and styles in mobile web and native experiences.
- Technical Skill: Expert knowledge of Figma, including creating complex components with variants, properties, and interaction demos. Expert knowledge of Material and HIG design guidance and Native expectations.
- Design integrity: High degree of design craft and polish.
- Communication: Documentation expertise and the ability to educate peers on all things design systems. Demonstrated ability to use storytelling effectively in a variety of methods (visual, spoken language, etc.)
- Specific strengths: Strong skills in animation, prototyping, data visualization, and/or iconography preferred.
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). To learn more about Gusto’s compensation philosophy and benefits offerings please view our Total Rewards Approach page.
Our cash compensation range for this role is $146,000/yr to $183,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $177,000/yr to $222,000/yr in San Francisco, Seattle & New York. 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. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.
Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer.
Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice.
Gusto, Inc.
A platform offering payroll, benefits, and HR management services tailored for small and medium-sized businesses.
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