Some of our best stories come from the people who’ve been here long enough to see Gusto grow and change — and who’ve grown and changed right alongside it.
We sat down with a few Gusties who’ve been part of our journey for 5–10 years, to hear what that’s really looked like. Their stories get to the heart of what makes Gusto so special.
What brought you to Gusto originally, and what’s kept you here?
Shaun Katona
I’m still here because I get to solve hard problems every day. Payroll and HR might sound mundane, but the challenges are intriguing and my work is profoundly impactful: people receive their paychecks and access healthcare because of what I do.
Ryan Newton
The customer-centric vision and early interactions with Eddie Kim initially drew me here. That customer-centric vision still keeps me here. Hearing from Gustomers is really rewarding.
Lisa Barcelo
Coming from the highly regimented world of healthcare, I was hungry for a change. I sought a company structured enough to provide mentorship and career progression but flexible enough to allow me to explore my curiosity and tackle diverse challenges. The ability to wear multiple hats at Gusto has enabled me to understand the business comprehensively — from technical data science work and customer-facing applications to strategic decision-making — which has made me both more valuable and more engaged.
What part of Gusto’s mission resonates most with you?
Ryan Newton
If we do the right thing for the customer, it will ultimately lead to more success for Gusto. Other companies seem to preach a similar value, but don’t walk the talk in the same way Gusto does.
Lisa Barcelo
Ownership mentality — this motivates employees to feel that everything they do should be done with pride. We’re all on the same team, and when we help each other, we are stronger as a collective.
Shaun Katona
To create a world where work empowers a better life! I work hard so I can enjoy my life outside of work. I hope Gusto is able to provide our customers with more opportunities to enjoy their life outside of work because we let them focus on what’s important at work, and we take care of the rest, giving them that time back.
What has surprised you most about your career journey here?
Achint Goel
The biggest surprise in my career journey here has been the unexpected depth of my growth in Dreaming Big and Making It Real. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see how this non-technical skill set has directly translated into a significant ability to influence our product strategy, ensuring we always remain resolutely customer-centric.
Ryan Newton
I think Gusto and my manager chain really ‘let me be myself,’ which lets me work at my maximum capabilities and leverage many of the non-purely engineering skills I have.
Matan Zruya
The biggest surprise is just how complicated building payroll software really is. In school, problems are neat and tidy. The real world isn’t like that at all. Payroll rules aren’t laws of physics; they’re made by people, so they’re full of exceptions, edge cases, and constant changes. You have to build software that can handle that complexity.
Lisa Barcelo
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how collaborative people have been. In some industries, people leave you to fend for yourself. But at Gusto, people are genuinely willing to help nudge you toward growth. I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the smartest, most humble people I’ve ever met, and “as iron sharpens iron,” I have been able to mentor and support newer Gusties joining our team. It truly feels like a place where multiple people have your back.
How has Gusto changed or grown/evolved since you joined?
Achint Goel
Much more emphasis on Engineering culture concerning stability, monitoring and reliability, architecture, scalability, and performance. Our focus on and ability to be leading innovators for product strategy compared to other similar products.
Shaun Katona
Perhaps unexpectedly, Gusto still feels the same today as it did on my first day. There are 5x more of us now than when I started, but at the end of the day, everyone’s here to solve customer pain. That’s always been the north star.
Matan Zruya
The biggest change is just the sheer scale. When I started, we had thousands of customers; now it’s hundreds of thousands. That changes how you approach everything. A tiny performance tweak can add up to a massive improvement for our customers.
Of course, the flip side is that the stakes are higher. A mistake has a much bigger impact, so we’ve had to get a lot more mature and disciplined in how we test, release changes, and handle problems.
Do you have a favorite Gusto memory or tradition?
Achint Goel
During offer calls, having all Gusties who interviewed the candidate hop on to congratulate and share their excitement.
Ryan Newton
The fun socks are still embedded in my daily attire and wardrobe.
Shaun Katona
For our monthly Engineering all-hands Zoom calls, we would end the meeting by playing Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” as the meeting was always on a Friday. During Covid, someone at Gusto paid for a Cameo from Rebecca Black, and it was played during the all-hands.
Matan Zruya
I was still pretty new at Gusto, and it was my first “end of year”. In the payroll world, the end of the year is everything. It’s the easiest time for a business to switch payroll providers.
My manager at the time and I were tackling a big project for “end of year” — the key to unlocking a whole new group of customers. We worked through the night and finished in the morning, just as our colleagues started to arrive. It just so happened that same morning, our investor Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo, was coming to talk to the team. We all sat in our small kitchen as he came in and said: “I just walked through the door and looked around, and this reminds me of my early days at Yahoo. Cherish this moment, it’s not going to stay like this.”
Sure enough, the work we finished that morning ended up tipping the scale and helped us cross our yearly growth target. It was one of those quintessential Silicon Valley moments he told us to cherish.
How do you think your work has impacted customers or other Gusties?
Matan Zruya
One of my most memorable experiences was in April 2020, at the start of the pandemic. We worked through the weekend to add support for the newly announced Employee Retention Credit — a refundable tax credit designed to help businesses keep employees on payroll. Normally, employers withhold and remit payroll taxes to the IRS. With ERC, eligible businesses could retain a portion of those taxes — up to $7,000 per employee per quarter — as an immediate cash benefit. These were critical dollars that could make the difference between staying open or shutting down. By building ERC support directly into payroll runs, we allowed employers to retain those funds in real time rather than waiting to file later for a refund. We all understood the urgency of this work, and it was nice to focus on a problem we actually could solve in an otherwise very uncertain time.
Ryan Newton
The work that my team and I do directly impacts customers. I hear it from Gustomers directly or indirectly. Often impacts in positive ways, and sometimes in critical ways. Having this feedback loop and direct access to Gustomers (either through Gusto processes, or out in the world) is important to keep me motivated and focused.
Achint Goel
Enabling growth for Gusto as well as our customers by mitigating any financial or reputational risk associated with different products and services offered. Helping Gusto and the organization think of risk as a customer experience problem rather than just managing losses.
What are you excited about for Gusto’s future?
Ryan Newton
So even though we already provide a generally outstanding product, we have much more potential. Gusto isn’t even close to having ‘won’ yet, which means we still have a journey ahead of us, which is exciting!
Achint Goel
Continuing our builder mindset and being at the forefront of innovation and technology in how we serve our Customers, especially with all the opportunities in AI.
Gusto is hiring! Learn more at gusto.com/careers.
Celebrating Impact: Voices of Long-Tenured Gusties was originally published in Gusto Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
