About the Role:

As a UX Researcher on the team, your work will directly inform the bets Gusto makes on future product investments. You will partner with senior leadership, including VPs and above, bringing clarity to ambiguous, high-stakes decisions and sharpening our understanding of the customers we serve. This role is the equivalent of a Senior Staff-level at other external companies.

Success looks like: a clear-eyed view of where our AI experiences are working or falling short, and senior executives that trust your evidence to guide where Gusto invests next.

Here's what you'll do day-to-day:

• Set and drive a quantitative research roadmap across R&D, prioritizing where evidence reduces risk on our biggest product bets.
• Develop psychometric frameworks, validated constructs and scales to measure how customers experience Gusto's AI features.
• Own Gusto's approach to quantitative methods, from evolving our org-wide survey strategy to knowing when to generalize qualitative findings at scale (e.g., MaxDiff, conjoint) and designing rigorous studies that reduce bias.
• Partner closely with Data Science to combine behavioral, attitudinal, and sentiment data into a coherent view of the customer, uncovering the story behind the metrics.
• Build and maintain clear segmentation of Gusto's ideal customer profiles, keeping it current as the business and product evolve.
• Build scaled usability measurement, including large-sample benchmarking and competitive comparisons, to give teams a high-confidence read on experience and break ties between design directions.
• Elevate Gusto's quantitative research practice: mentor other researchers, build shared tools and standards, and advance an AI-native way of working (Claude Code, Gumloop, etc.) that raises the floor across the org.

Here's what we're looking for:

• You have 8+ years of experience leading quantitative UX research, with a proven track record of influencing strategic product and business decisions at the executive level, and communicating complex findings clearly to senior stakeholders.
• You possess deep expertise in survey science, sampling, pricing research, and statistical modeling, including developing psychometric frameworks and validated measurement scales, along with experience with AI and LLM evaluation methods, logs analysis, and behavioral analysis.
• You are proficient in SQL and Python, and comfortable working hands-on with survey platforms such as Qualtrics.
• You have experience designing and running usability research at scale, from benchmarking studies to tie-breaking evaluations between design variants.
• You have a track record of setting research standards or practices that scale beyond your own projects, across multiple teams or an organization.
• You have extensive experience working on AI-powered products, and genuine curiosity about using AI tools to scale your own research process.
• You have experience enabling and coaching non-researchers to conduct their own research, and enjoy fostering a culture of learning.

Our cash compensation range for this role is $172,000/yr to $215,000/yr in Denver, and $202,000/yr to $253,000/yr in San Francisco and 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. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

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.