Decisions That Doubled Gusto Engineering's Throughput
Gusto's engineering team doubled throughput by adopting AI-assisted tools, streamlining code reviews, and giving engineers more autonomy. The changes reduced bottlenecks and sped up code delivery.
Background
Gusto is a US-based HR and payroll platform for small businesses, competing with companies like ADP and Rippling. This article is an engineering leadership post about how Gusto's engineering team dramatically increased its output ("throughput") — how quickly it can deliver code and features. Key context: many tech companies have been under pressure to "do more with less" post-2022, and engineering productivity is a hot topic in Silicon Valley. The "doubling" claim is notable because genuine large-scale productivity gains in software engineering are rare and often debated. The post likely details specific process changes, tooling investments, or organizational shifts (e.g., reducing meetings, improving CI/CD pipelines, adopting AI coding assistants) that led to the claimed improvement. Readers should be aware that such claims are often contested internally and externally, and that "throughput" is a narrow metric that doesn't capture code quality, maintenance burden, or employee well-being.