Description
About Gusto 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.
Design at Gusto Design at Gusto is made up of over 80 creative, collaborative people who care deeply about our mission to empower small businesses and their employees. We're a cross-functional group that is always looking for opportunities to build understanding and empathy for the people who use Gusto.
About the Opportunity Brand design is where our identity comes to life. Visual craft, consistency, and clarity aren't finishing touches,they're the work. They're how we earn trust, convey confidence, and make people feel something. Gusto is growing our in-house creative studio inside our fast-moving, late-stage startup. We design campaigns, brand systems, and multi-channel marketing assets,partnering closely with marketing, product marketing, and comms to bring Gusto's brand to life across every touchpoint.
Responsibilities
- Define and maintain quality standards for AI-generated brand work (establishing what passes, what fails, and why) so the team can move fast without drifting from the brand.
- Demonstrated ability to evaluate AI-generated creative work critically,knowing when to use it, when to redirect it, and how to articulate why a generated direction fails Gusto's brand standards.
- Has established or contributed to AI creative governance: what the team will and won't use AI for, how to QA AI outputs, and how to maintain brand integrity at higher production volumes.
- Manage, mentor, and develop a small team of brand and motion designers,setting expectations, providing feedback, and supporting career growth.
- Set creative direction and maintain visual quality across campaigns, paid media, email, web, social, experiential and product marketing.
- Build and maintain scalable design systems, templates, and brand guidelines.
- Partner closely with marketing, product marketing, comms, and creative leadership to prioritize work and translate strategy into visual execution.
- Define and improve team workflows, processes, and production standards to scale creative output.
- Track record of raising quality standards in an environment where AI is accelerating output , and keeping the bar high when the temptation is to ship faster and evaluate less.
- Contribute directly to creative work when needed, maintaining a strong connection to the craft.
Requirements
- 8+ years of professional brand design experience spanning campaign, marketing, and brand systems work.
- 2–4+ years of direct people management experience leading brand or production designers.
- A portfolio demonstrating strong craft, brand-building work, and range across multi-channel marketing.
- Expertise in Figma and Adobe Creative Suite; familiarity with motion tools a plus.
- AI fluency in creative workflows and processes, with hands-on familiarity with generative AI tools for design, ideation, and production.
- Experience building and maintaining scalable design systems and templates.
- Strong cross-functional collaboration skills in fast-paced, high-output environments.
- A leadership mindset,you enjoy developing people and building systems, not just making the work yourself.
Compensation Details 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 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. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.