He served from 1956–60 as a Physics Scientist at the US Army Signal Corps Research Lab, a metallurgist from 1960–61 at Pratt & Whitney, and from 1961–1993 as a member of the research staff at IBM Yorktown.
In 1992, Gambino received the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award together with Praveen Chaudhari and Jerome J. Cuomo, "for the discovery of amorphous magnetic films used in magneto-optic data storage systems".
He received the National Medal of Technology in 1995 for the development of amorphous magnetic materials used for magneto-optic disk media.
Gambino was also elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for the discovery of magnetic anisotropy, the enabling technology of magneto-optical recording.
Gambino was also an IEEE Fellow and holds 40 patents.