Product Counsel - HR Apps/Employment Law

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. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve. All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy . AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process. About the Role: We are seeking a detail-oriented and proactive attorney who wants to apply their employment law and product counseling expertise to help build compliant, scalable HR products for small businesses. This is a unique opportunity to serve as the embedded legal partner for Gusto's HR Apps portfolio—a broad and growing suite of products spanning employee handbooks, compliance guidance and templates, hiring, onboarding, and beyond. In this role, you will provide day-to-day legal support to our HR Apps product and engineering teams, with a focus on building out a suite of compliance products that make a real difference for small businesses and their employees. We're looking for a creative attorney who brings a builder's mentality and a genuine "find a way forward" approach to complex legal and product challenges. If you want to use technology and teamwork to build compliance solutions for small businesses, this role might be a great fit for you. Success in this role requires strong organizational skills, a process-oriented mindset, and the ability to manage a high volume of requests across a diverse product portfolio. Attorneys are expected to use AI tools in everyday work to accelerate research and processes, synthesize insights, and refine positioning and content with speed and precision, while maintaining accuracy and consistency with legal best practices. About the Team: Gusto's Legal & Compliance team partners with product and engineering teams to enable innovation, facilitate responsible company growth, accelerate the Gusto roadmap, and provide compliant products to our customers through solution-focused counsel on legal and business risks. We are passionate about using groundbreaking technology and excellent service to elevate the experience of small business owners and their employees. Each team member takes real ownership of their work and makes a meaningful impact every day. Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day: Provide tactical legal support to HR Apps product, engineering, and operations teams for a broad portfolio of HR products, including handbooks, labor law posters, hiring, onboarding, leaves of absence, I-9, regulatory reporting, background checks, learning management, performance, and offboarding. Review product requirements and identify compliance and regulatory risks early in the development process, during product iteration, and throughout the product lifecycle. Identify, prioritize, and develop HR Apps-related compliance artifacts to seed Gusto's compliance rules engine and maintain the Legal “Single Source of Truth” compliance hub. Build processes, resources, and tooling—including AI-driven workflows, self-help checklists, playbooks, and structured frameworks for R&D requests (e.g., via JIRA and/or Notion)—that drive efficiency, standardize review workflows, and reduce risk across the product development lifecycle. Research regulatory areas impacting HR Apps offerings; proactively monitor regulatory developments and legislative changes to assess product impact and identify needed updates. Help resolv…