Taxonomist​/Ontologist

Denver, CO;

San Francisco, CA;

New York, NY

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 customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 400,000 small businesses across the country and build a workplace that represents and celebrates the customers we serve.

Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

Gusto is seeking an experienced ontologist and taxonomist who will be a key collaborator in building next‑generation, AI‑powered knowledge systems, enhancing how knowledge is created, delivered, and experienced by our customers and internal teams (Gusties). You will design, implement, and maintain the semantic structures that guide and give context to AI tools, ensuring our content is accurate and personalized. Your work will accelerate our mission to make every Gustie AI native through key initiatives that scale the business.

This role is a strategic partner for leadership across Content, CX, Product Management, Engineering, and Data Science. You will identify, plan, and execute a roadmap that leverages AI for content automation and intelligent service delivery, including creating AI agents to amplify efficiency, scale, and impact. You will collaborate with cross‑functional teams to ensure our taxonomies and ontologies are the foundation of our AI content strategy, enabling enhanced data interoperability, automated content workflows, and sophisticated knowledge discovery.

• Lead Gusto’s efforts in building an enterprise taxonomy and ontology management platform from RFP to implementation, focusing on enablement for knowledge graph capabilities and integration with related semantic systems (Schema App, Neo4j, Cube, etc.)
• Design, develop, and maintain scalable taxonomies and ontologies that serve as the backbone for AI content generation, personalization, and retrieval systems.
• Create and implement intuitive taxonomy structures to train and fine‑tune AI models, ensuring accurate, context‑aware, and on‑brand content delivery.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Content teams to design and automate content workflows, integrating semantic models to power generative AI, content strategy, and intelligent automation.
• Establish governance frameworks for taxonomy, ontology, and AI‑generated semantic data, providing guidance, training, and quality assurance to internal stakeholders.
• Analyze content performance and user interaction data to continuously refine and improve AI model outputs and semantic structures.
• Stay abreast of emerging trends in AI—particularly generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and semantic technologies—and incorporate cutting‑edge methods to enhance Gusto’s knowledge infrastructure.

• 8+ years of experience in taxonomy development and/or ontology design, with demonstrated experience applying these skills to AI‑driven systems.
• Deep understanding of AI and machine learning principles, especially NLP, generative AI, and LLMs.
• Experience using AI/ML principles to inform taxonomy and ontology development and governance.
• Hands‑on experience with AI content creation, prompt engineering, and workflow automation tools (e.g., generative AI platforms, content management systems with AI integration).
• Proven ability to develop and implement content strategies that leverage AI for personalization, delivery, and optimization.
• Practical knowledge of customer support processes and the ability to translate business needs into scalable semantic data solutions.
• Experience with Semantic Web technologies (RDF, OWL, SKOS), query languages (SPARQL), and ontology editing tools, with a clear understanding of how they power AI reasoning and knowledge graphs.
• Strong problem‑solving capabilities, attention to detail, and the ability to work effectively across departments, balancing technical precision with practical application.
• Outstanding communication and storytelling skills for translating complex technical work into actionable insights for diverse stakeholders.
• Prof…