Principal Product Designer, AI

This Principal Product Designer will define the interaction model, UX principles, and product direction for Artificial Intelligence across the Gusto platform, focusing initially on the Gus conversational assistant and expanding into AI-powered workflows. Responsibilities include leading Tier 1 AI initiatives from concept to launch, designing full AI workflows, establishing scalable interaction patterns, and mentoring other designers on AI features.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the UX vision for our Gus conversational assistant and AI experiences across the Gusto platform
• Lead and ship Tier 1 AI initiatives from early concept through launch and iteration
• Design full AI-powered workflows – shaping how users provide input, how model outputs are validated and acted on, and how the experience handles risk, uncertainty, and failure
• Partner closely with AI Product and Engineering leaders to translate complex technical constraints into intuitive, credible user experiences
• Establish scalable AI interaction patterns and design principles that teams across Gusto can adopt
• Write and iterate on prompts in collaboration with engineering, PM, and content design
• Prototype AI experiences using modern AI-native tools
• Mentor designers on the AI team and coach designers across Gusto who are shipping AI features
• Advocate for high-quality, responsible AI experiences across Design and R&D

Requirements

• Proven AI product impact: shipped LLM-driven product experiences to production and demonstrated measurable impact on adoption, efficiency, or user trust
• Systems-level thinking: designed complete AI workflows and can speak fluently about failure modes, guardrails, user control, and transparency
• Strategic product influence: defined UX direction at a portfolio or company level and influenced roadmap, scope, and sequencing decisions in partnership with senior PM and Engineering leaders
• Technical fluency: comfortable collaborating with highly technical AI engineers and understands concepts like retrieval, context management, latency, and model reliability
• Builder mindset: ships, prototypes, and iterates, and is not interested in defining principles without turning them into real customer impact
• Organizational leadership: has enhanced team work quality, achieved by coaching team members, setting new standards, and building solid partnerships across different functions

Benefits

• Competitive compensation packages with a strong emphasis on equity-based compensation (ownership in Gusto)
• Total Rewards philosophy
• Diversity and inclusion
• Equal opportunity employer
• Reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities

Key Skills