Senior Manager, Payroll Operations

The Role Location: To create the best experience for this employee and to meet the business needs, this role requires you to be based within +1/+3 UTC. The Senior Manager, (Managed) Payroll Operations is responsible for leading Oyster’s managed payroll operations. You will be responsible for ensuring payroll is delivered with best-in-class accuracy, compliance, and timeliness across multiple countries, while driving continuous process optimization and operational excellence. You will oversee and develop a high-performing global team of payroll professionals, providing clear direction, coaching, and support while fostering a collaborative and accountable culture. You will ensure the team is fully equipped with the tools, resources, and training needed to operate effectively and to consistently deliver high-quality results. You will monitor performance, identify improvement opportunities, and partner with cross-functional teams to enhance workflows and drive operational excellence aligned with organizational goals. You will be accountable for ensuring payroll processes, controls, and systems are built for global scale, audit readiness, and an exceptional experience for both customers and team members. You will lead the adoption of Oyster’s automated payroll tooling and drive continuous improvement across processes, controls, and compliance. This role requires a strong people leader, a strategic operator, and a subject-matter expert who can balance day-to-day delivery with long-term scaling initiatives. Responsibilities Oversee the end-to-end execution of managed payroll operations across multiple countries, ensuring best-in-class accuracy, timeliness, and compliance. Lead and develop a high-performing global payroll team, providing clear direction, coaching, and support to foster a collaborative, accountable, and growth-oriented culture. Set, monitor, and deliver against SLAs, OKRs, and KPIs, and effectively communicate performance and results to key stakeholders to ensure consistent, high-quality payroll delivery across all regions. Serve as an escalation point and subject-matter expert both externally and internally to deliver a best-of-breed payroll experience to Oyster’s customers and team members, ensuring payroll queries are resolved within defined SLAs. Maintain deep subject-matter expertise in multi-country payroll operations, ensuring regulatory requirements, compliance standards, and best practices are consistently met. Drive root-cause analysis (RCA) and continuous improvement initiatives to strengthen payroll controls, compliance, and operational efficiency. Partner and coordinate cross-functionally e.g. with Product, Treasury, Payroll. Transformation teams to optimize payroll processes and to enhance cross-functional workflows. Drive the adoption and continuous enhancement of Oyster’s internal payroll tools and automation capabilities to support scalable, streamlined operations. Serve as a strategic operator capable of balancing day-to-day execution with long-term scaling initiatives that support Oyster’s evolving payroll operating model. Minimum Requirements 8+ years experience of vendor-managed payroll operations in a global context, including 4+ years in leadership roles managing payroll teams across multiple geographies. Deep understanding of managed payroll across multiple geographies, including end-to-end payroll delivery, payroll software and systems, local statutory frameworks. Proven track record of leading the delivery and optimization of an exceptional payroll experience for a diverse and complex set of stakeholders. Exceptional skills in stakeholder communication; proven experience in owning, setting and achieving best-in-class SLAs/KPIs. Ability to develop highly effective and collaborative partnerships with Product, Transformation, Treasury teams etc to optimize processes and efficiency. Proven experience implementing new country payrolls, delivering market expansion, payroll vendor management and migrations. Track record of delivering payroll transformation and automation within a global payroll context. You'll also need A reliable home internet connection (or be able to get one) Fluent English language skills