# Head of Design, Unified Service Platform **Company**: Gusto **Location**: Denver, CO;San Francisco, CA **Work arrangement**: hybrid **Experience**: executive **Job type**: full-time **Salary**: $204,000/yr to $238,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $240,000/yr to $280,000/yr in San Francisco, Seattle & New York **Category**: Design **Industry**: Technology **Apply**: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/gusto/jobs/8020155?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply **Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_f146598a-d40 ## Description 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. ### About 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 Role: Gusto's Unified Service Platform (USP) is the infrastructure behind how small businesses get help when it matters most , AI-driven support, multi-channel service, and the human expertise that steps in when AI isn't enough. We're looking for a Head of Design to lead the design team behind it and set the bar for what AI-native service design looks like at Gusto. ### Responsibilities: - Lead, coach, and grow a team of three designers (product + conversation design) , own their development, careers, performance, and craft growth, and create the conditions for them to do their best work. - Own design direction and quality across USP , set the vision and the bar, and be accountable for the team's outcomes, not just its output. - Stay hands-on where it matters most , as a player-coach, prototype and design the hardest flows and quartet-level artifacts yourself, not just review them; flex your hands-on time down as the team grows. - Represent design on the USP quartet , co-lead product direction with PM, Engineering, and Data leaders; author strategy and POV in ambiguous spaces; drive convergence and close decisions. - Set the standard for AI-native service design. This includes how trust, uncertainty, graceful failure, and AI-human handoffs show up on the platform. - Guide service design end-to-end , journey mapping, blueprinting, and operational handoffs for a two-sided product , through your team. - Champion an AI-native design practice , model and expect fluency with AI-native tools (Claude Code, Cursor, and comparable agentic tools) as part of the craft, and raise the floor for how the team designs. - Partner on hiring and team building as the team grows. ### Requirements: - Experience managing and growing product designers , you've led a team, developed designers, run performance and growth, and built a healthy team culture. - Design leadership in ambiguity , you set direction and a high craft bar, co-own strategy with cross-functional peers, and hold a position when the right answer is unpopular. - AI-product judgment in consequential domains , you've shipped (or led teams that shipped) AI-mediated experiences in production, and can speak to uncertainty, errors, graceful failure, and human override. - Service design depth , real journey mapping and blueprinting on two-sided products with operational handoffs, not workshop exercises. - Hands-on AI fluency , you use AI-native tools yourself and can raise your team's fluency; you perceive AI as part of the craft, not separate from it. - 12+ years of design experience, including 5+ years managing designers, with clear ownership of shipped work in a B2B SaaS environment. ### Compensation Details: Our cash compensation range for this role is $204,000/yr to $238,000/yr in Denver & most remote locations, and $240,000/yr to $280,000/yr in San Francisco, Seattle & New York. ## Skills ### Required - AI-native design - service design - journey mapping - blueprinting - operational handoffs - AI-product judgment - design leadership --- Source: [Apply at job-boards.greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/gusto/jobs/8020155?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)