HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

edawerd

2,224 karma · joined March 15, 2007

Cofounder, CTO of Gusto (YC W12).

We're looking for engineers to join our top-notch team. Email me at my first name at gusto.com

submissionscomments
edawerd··on Launch HN: Simple Habit (YC W17) – Spotify for Meditation
I believe they have a one-time "lifetime" subscription buy
edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2017)
Gusto - VISA, ONSITE (SF or Denver)

Gusto is building delightful payroll, benefits, and HR software for small businesses.

In only 4 years, we've grown to process nationwide payroll for more than 40,000 companies, process ~$20B in payments, and recently added health insurance, 401(k), and a host of HR features.

Team culture is a huge part of what makes Gusto special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineers. You can read more about us on our engineering blog: http://engineering.gusto.com/

Some of the technologies we use: Ruby/Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, and React.js.

We have openings to work in our Payroll, Benefits, and HR teams

Apply online here! https://gusto.com/careers or email me directly.

Interview process: 1 technical phone screen (1 hour over Coderpad), and 1 onsite interview (~4.5 hours of interviews + pair programming)

edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2016)
Gusto - VISA, ONSITE (SF or Denver)

Gusto is building dead-simple, delightful payroll, benefits, and HR software for small businesses.

In only 3.5 years, we've grown to process nationwide payroll for more than 35,000 companies, process ~$20B in payments, and recently added health insurance, 401(k) and workers compensation insurance.

Team culture is a huge part of what makes Gusto special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineers. You

can read more about us on our engineering blog:

http://engineering.gusto.com/

Some of the technologies we use: Ruby/Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, and React.js.

We have openings to work in Payroll and our HR teams

Apply online here! https://gusto.com/careers or email me directly.

edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2016)
Gusto - VISA, ONSITE (SF or Denver)

Gusto is building dead-simple, delightful payroll, benefits, and HR software for small businesses.

In only 3.5 years, we've grown to process nationwide payroll for more than 30,000 companies, process $15B+ in payments, and recently added health insurance and workers compensation insurance.

Team culture is a huge part of what makes Gusto special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineers. You can read more about us on our engineering blog:

http://engineering.gusto.com/

Some of the technologies we use: Ruby/Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, and React.js.

We have openings to work in Payroll and our HR teams

Apply online here! https://gusto.com/careers or email me directly.

edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2016)
Gusto - VISA, ONSITE (SF or Denver)

Gusto is building dead-simple, delightful payroll, benefits, and HR software for small businesses.

In only 3.5 years, we've grown to process nationwide payroll for more than 30,000 companies, process $15B+ in payments, and recently added health insurance and workers compensation insurance.

Team culture is a huge part of what makes Gusto special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineers. You can read more about us on our engineering blog:

http://engineering.gusto.com/

Some of the technologies we use: Ruby/Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, and React.js.

We have openings to work in Payroll, Benefits, HR, or growth

Apply online here! https://gusto.com/careers or email me directly.

edawerd··on Apple’s loudest activist investor just dumped his stake
If you're bullish on AAPL, this is the kind of stuff that investors can and should take advantage of. Apple is the same company yesterday as it is today. It's ability to generate cash is the same today as it was yesterday. Carl Icahn saying something on TV doesn't change that.

From one of Warren Buffet's annual letters:

“If a moody fellow with a farm bordering my property yelled out a price every day to me at which he would either buy my farm or sell me his — and those prices varied widely over short periods of time depending on his mental state — how in the world could I be other than benefited.

If his daily shout-out was ridiculously low, and I had some spare cash, I would buy his farm. If the number he yelled was absurdly high, I could either sell to him or just go on farming.

Owners of stocks, however, too often let the capricious and irrational behavior of their fellow owners cause them to behave irrationally.

Because there is so much chatter about markets, the economy, interest rates, price behavior of stocks, etc., some investors believe it is important to listen to pundits — and, worse yet, important to consider acting upon their comments."

edawerd··on How Zenefits' Big Bet on Sales Went Wrong
Hi Casey!

Can you shoot me an email (in my profile) wit a little more detail about the CSV report? Email me a report and show me what is wrong with it -- I'll personally make sure it's fixed.

edawerd··on How Zenefits' Big Bet on Sales Went Wrong
Hi!

I'm one of the co-founders and CTO of Gusto! If you feel comfortable putting me in touch with the appropriate person in your company, I'd love to send over that "we miss you call"!

Compliance and accuracy has been #1 for us from the very start. I'd love to see if we can address any other issues so you can come back to us!

My contact is in my profile

edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2016)
Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll) - VISA, ONSITE (SF or Denver)

Gusto is building dead-simple, delightful payroll, benefits, and HR software for small businesses.

In only 3 years, we've grown to process payroll for more than 25,000 companies and process billions in payroll for small businesses around the world.

Team culture is a huge part of what makes Gusto special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineers. You can read more about us on our engineering blog:

http://engineering.gusto.com/

Checkout what people are saying about us on our LIVE Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=gusto...

Our engineering team is in a hyper-growth, adding thousands of businesses to our system every month. Some of the technologies we use: Ruby on Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, and React.js.

We have openings to work in payroll, benefits, HR, platform, or growth

Apply online here! https://gusto.com/careers or email me directly.

edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
We're providing a brokerage.
edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
It's gUSto. Like how you pronounce us. The "us" in the name resonates with our mission and is another reason why we liked it :)
edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
We absolutely did consider this tradeoff and what I've learned during the rebranding process is that it's a tradeoff between short-term and long-term. Having a descriptive name has its advantages in getting your early customers, especially when you're just starting out. It's one of the reasons why we had "payroll" in our first name.

But it's a double-edged sword and having a name that describes what you do also starts to limit you, as we saw. It's one the reasons all the world's greatest brands usually don't have a name that describes what they do -- it becomes more important to have a name that you can build a brand around.

edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
One of the main benefits of a truly integrated payroll, benefits, and compliance product is that you don't have to worry about the syncing of employee records across these systems. We intentionally wanted to start at the lowest, most fundamental layer (payroll) and build these other pieces into a single product.
edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
Gusto co-founder here. By no means do we consider payroll to be finished! This is something that every employer needs and will always be a big (if not the biggest) part of Gusto. One of the main reasons why our benefits offering is so good is that it's built on top of our own payroll offering.
edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
On the payroll side, Gusto is actually a full-service payroll provider in all 50 states, meaning we do all your tax calculations, direct deposits, tax payments, and quarterly tax form filings.

For workers' compensation insurance, we're also nationwide.

For health insurance, we're currently available in California only, but we're already expanding to get nationwide.

edawerd··on ZenPayroll is now Gusto
Gusto co-founder here! We actually changed our name because ZenPayroll no longer adequately described what we bring to our customers. We're not just payroll and payments. Gusto is all about empowering companies to put people first.
edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2015)
ZenPayroll is looking for talented and motivated folks across all levels of experience who are seeking a collaborative, iterative environment and can help us attain our goals. At the same time, given the size of our team and our trajectory, new members have tons of opportunities for personal growth and leadership.

Full Stack (SF): https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/83332#.VeYjRtNV...

Growth Engineering (SF): https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/53835#.VeYjg9NV...

Head of Security (SF): https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/80249#.VeYjlNNV...

Payroll Experience Engineering (SF): https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/82145#.VeYjpNNV...

Platform Engineering (SF): https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/82143#.VeYju9NV...

Data Engineering (SF): https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/80381#.VeYj-NNV...

Check out our engineering blog: http://engineering.zenpayroll.com/

edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2015)
San Francisco, CA - ZenPayroll - VISA

ZenPayroll is building dead-simple, delightful payroll software for small businesses. In only 2.5 years, we've grown to process payroll for more than 10,000 companies and process billions in payroll for small businesses around the world.

Here's a LIVE twitter query of how ZenPayroll is used in the same sentence as PayChex

https://twitter.com/search?q=zenpayroll%20paychex&src=typd

Team culture is a huge part of what makes ZenPayroll special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineer. ZenPayroll is in a hyper-growth, adding thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of employees to our system every month. We've just raised a $60M Series B, led, by Google Capital to help take our company to the next level. Some of the technologies we use: Ruby on Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, React.js, MySQL, Redis.

Apply online here! https://zenpayroll.com/careers or email me directly.

edawerd··on Engineering Principles and Values
That has definitely happened here. And I've personally had my fair share of breaching people's trust. We're human. It happens.

There's no magical solution to fix it. I think the best thing to do is acknowledge it to the person you've violated and tell them you're going to do your best to earn their trust back over time (and actually do it).

edawerd··on Engineering Principles and Values
I'll write more about this in my next post, but we started by going on an engineering retreat and came up with a pretty massive document. The hardest part was distilling all the text down to a point that was easily consumable. I actually feel that the amount of text is just about right.
edawerd··on Engineering Principles and Values
It's definitely a priority here, and more so as we continue to grow. This particular engineering value was intentionally left a little vague because prioritizing the people in the company can mean so many different things, and we wanted to purposefully leave it a little to interpretation and our best judgement.
edawerd··on Engineering Principles and Values
ZenPayroll CTO here. At least for the stage that we're currently in, having high unit test coverage, high-level integration tests, a strong code-review process, and individual accountability for bugs has worked very well for us so far. So well, in fact, that we don't feel we need a dedicated QA team.

It's also worth mentioning that when coming up with our values/principles, we started with the understanding they can and probably will change over time, especially as we grow. So while we don't have dedicated QA team today, we'll keep an open mind do whatever works best for us in the future.

edawerd··on Engineering Principles and Values
What we meant by "we" is that the individual engineer who wrote the code is ultimaetly responsible for it. From building/modifying the backend APIs, frontend code, testing, QA, and ongoing maintenance/bug fixes.

I guess "we" really means "you"

edawerd··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2015)
San Francisco, CA - ZenPayroll - VISA

ZenPayroll is building dead-simple, delightful payroll software for small businesses. In only 2 years, we've grown to process payroll for more than 10,000 companies, and process billions in payroll for small businesses around the world.

Team culture is a huge part of what makes ZenPayroll special. We have a team of super-sharp, passionate, hard-working, and friendly software engineer. ZenPayroll is in a hyper-growth, adding thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of employees to our system every month. We've just raised a $60M Series B, led, by Google Capital to help take our company to the next level.

Some of the technologies we use: Ruby on Rails, JavaScript/CoffeeScript, Backbone.js, React.js, MySQL, Redis.

Our Engineering Blog: http://engineering.zenpayroll.com/

Benefits/Perks: https://zenpayroll.com/careers

Full-Stack Engineer: https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/28115#.VW0n5FxV...

Growth Engineer: https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/53835#.VW0n5lxV...

Product Support Engineer: https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/27718#.VW0n6FxV...

Security Engineer: https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/63608#.VW0n6VxV...

IT Support: https://boards.greenhouse.io/zenpayroll/jobs/66928#.VW0oU1xV...

edawerd··on ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm
Shoot me an email. We have a growing Devops need!
edawerd··on ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm
We have a dedicated employee dashboard where employees can login do things like change bank account information, federal and state withholding , and even donate a part of their paystub to any registered 501(c).

We consider the employe experience to be just as important as the payroll administrators experience.

edawerd··on ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm
Yup! Part 3 of the post explains why there is the lag:

http://engineering.zenpayroll.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-...

By the way, I hope no one minds if I insert a plug here: We're working on some very interesting ways to cut down this time in our engineering team and we're hiring on all fronts. Shoot me an email directly (in my HN profile) if you're interested in learning more!

edawerd··on ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm
We have a number of great 3rd party time tracking software tools thats integrate well with ZenPayroll via our api. For example ,TSheets, WageBase, Nimble Schedule.

https://zenpayroll.com/integrations

edawerd··on ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm
Google Capital and Google Ventures are two different investments arms of Google. Google Ventures focuses a lot more on early stage companies (and makes many investments throughout the year), while Google Capital focus on later, growth stage companies. Google Capital tends to only do a few large investments each year. In ZenPayroll's case, we were honored to have strong interest from both GCap and GV, so they both invested, with GCap leading.
edawerd··on ZenPayroll (YC W12) Raises $60M From Group Led by Google Investment Arm
ZenPayroll is not a PEO, so we unfortunately cannot accept any company that want to operate under the PEO model.

As I'm sure you know, a PEO technically hires a client company's employees, thus becoming their employer of record for tax purposes. Our model (like most payroll companies) requires companies to hire their employees under their own EIN for maximum flexibility and cost efficiency.

← PreviousPage 2 of 8Next →