APEX Risk Operations Analyst

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:

As an APEX (Agent & Partner Experiences) Risk Operations Analyst, you will serve as a fraud-fighting detective for Gusto's partner ecosystem, playing a key role in keeping Gusto Embedded Payroll (GEP) and our API-driven partnerships the safest and most secure way to run payroll. In this role, you will identify patterns, recognize uncharacteristic behavior across partner-originated activity, and apply critical thinking to protect our partners and their end customers. Beyond investigation, you will continuously look for opportunities to iterate and optimize our processes — driving greater efficiency and reducing partner and customer pain along the way.

This role also sits at the front line of Gusto's increasingly AI-native Risk Operations work. You'll serve as the human in the loop for AI-powered workflows — reviewing flagged cases, validating AI outputs, making nuanced decisions where human discretion matters (including complex, white-glove partner cases the AI can't yet confidently resolve), and helping improve the systems we use every day.

About the Team:

The APEX Risk Operations team sits within the broader Risk Operations organization and is a key stakeholder in company decisions and operations. While our Risk Fraud Operations counterparts protect Gusto's direct customers, APEX safeguards Gusto's partner ecosystem — the businesses and developers who use Gusto behind the scenes through APIs and embedded payroll to power payroll for their own end customers.

Gusto Embedded Payroll (GEP) empowers developers to embed payroll solutions directly into their applications, combining robust APIs, embeddable UI flows, and developer toolkits to deliver a next-generation payroll product. Operating like a startup within Gusto, GEP moves fast and experiments often, and our team is pioneering how AI-native risk operations can secure payroll at scale for partners — giving you the chance to define industry best practices in real time.

As Gusto continues moving toward an AI-first operating model, APEX is evolving how we work so more case volume is supported by AI before it reaches human review, with analysts focused on judgment, edge cases, and continuous improvement. We are a small, close group that works hard. No egos here — we collaborate, share knowledge freely, and help each other out in a positive environment.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day:

• Human + AI Partnership & Feedback: Supervise and validate AI outputs for fraud and ACH risk cases originating from partner and API activity, making nuanced decisions where human discretion is needed, while documenting anomalies and opportunities for model improvement to continuously fine-tune AI system performance.

• AI-first mindset: Use AI tools in everyday work (Claude, Gemini, etc.). Explore how prompts, automations, or workflow tweaks can make your day-to-day work faster or smarter — and how AI can eliminate blockers not just for you, but for the whole team.

• Run operations: Own and optimize our operational task queues — keep things flowing, unblock partners and internal teams, and put the pieces together to make sense of partner-originated activity.

• Protect the partner ecosystem: Safeguard GEP and Gusto's API/embedded partnerships by investigating flagged activity, validating high-impact findings, and taking decisive action to mitigate risk while minimizing friction for legitimate partners and their end customers.

• Investigate complex, partner-specific cases: Deep-dive into high-value, white-glove, and edge cases tied to partner and API activity that are too sensitive or complex for AI decisioning — including anomalies the AI can't confidently resolve — and turn your findings into reusable AI training examples.

• Proactive critical thinking: Fraud is a complicated puzzle to solve. Come up with innovative methods to identify trends and patterns in partner and API traffic, and ideally catch unusual activity before impact.

• Builder mindset in action: Identify small manual pain points in partner-facing workflows and experiment with ways to automate or simplify them using AI tools to improve team performance.

• Work closely with key stakeholders: Work cross-functionally with risk, product, and engineering teams, as well as our external partners and their developers, to monitor AI performance, feed back edge cases, and design workflows where human expertise and AI intelligence reinforce one another.

• Deliver world-class partner support: Be a resource to our partners and internal teams while working as a subject matter expert to help with escalations pertaining to partner and embedded payroll risk.

Here’s what we're looking for:

• Experience: 2+ years of experience in operational work, fraud detection, and/or investigation. Bonus points for experience in payments, banking, or fintech, or with API/embedded products.

• Thought process: An insatiable appetite for problem solving, a knack for structured thinking using a data-driven approach, the ability to spot unusual patterns across partner and API activity, and sharp attention to detail. Demonstrates curiosity and a bias toward experimentation — asks "why" and tests "what if."

• Values: Driven by a strong moral compass, is objective yet compassionate, and does the right thing every time — including when balancing partner relationships against risk decisions.

• Discipline: Excellent time management skills and the ability to handle multiple projects/tasks simultaneously. Is extremely process and policy oriented.

• Attitude: Goal-oriented, positive, and proactive. Comfortable in a fast-paced, results-oriented environment. Communicates clearly and effectively with partners and internal teams alike.

• AI curiosity: Comfort experimenting with AI tools, providing structured feedback, and learning how to guide AI decision-making.

Bonus points for:

• Familiarity with fraud typologies, ACH risk, transaction patterns, and risk indicators

• Experience with APIs, embedded products, or developer-facing platforms

• Professional certifications (CFE or equivalent)

• Payroll or payments industry experience

• SQL/data analysis knowledge

• Experience prompting or working with generative AI

Our cash compensation amount for this role is between $79,565 - $95,478/year in Denver and between $99,565 - $119,478/year for New York & San Francisco. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate location, experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto's subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale.

Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. 

When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto. 

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability. If you require a medical or religious accommodation at any time throughout your candidate journey, please fill out this form and a member of our team will get in touch with you.

Gusto takes security and protection of your personal information very seriously. Please review our Fraudulent Activity Disclaimer.

Personal information collected and processed as part of your Gusto application will be subject to Gusto's Applicant Privacy Notice.

Department: Customer Experience