Payroll Operations Manager, Americas

Oyster • Austin, TX

4d • Remote

About The Position

The Payroll Operations Manager, (Americas) is a technically credible people leader who will shape and scale payroll operations across the region. You will lead an experienced distributed team, own operational escalations and vendor outcomes, and partner across the business to improve controls, customer experience, and service delivery. The role requires deep US and Canada payroll expertise, working knowledge of key Latin American markets, strong equity-payroll knowledge, and an automation-first approach to growth. Oyster is a global employment platform that lets companies hire, pay, and care for brilliant people anywhere. Ranked #10 of 250 on TIME and Statista's 2026 list of America's Top WorkTech Companies, Named one of America's Greatest Startup Workplaces 2026 by Newsweek, A G2 Spring 2026 Leader across Employer of Record, Global Employment, Multi-country Payroll, and HR Compliance, and the only B Corp-certified global employment platform.

Requirements

• Deep US and Canada payroll expertise, including multi-state and provincial compliance.
• Practical exposure to Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia payroll operations.
• Strong equity-payroll knowledge.
• Expertise in payroll controls, reconciliation, risk, escalation management, root-cause analysis, and SLA/KPI ownership.
• Proven vendor-management and vendor-accountability experience.
• Experience leading senior, experienced payroll ICs without micromanaging.
• Evidence of process improvement with concrete, measurable outcomes.
• Remote or distributed people-leadership experience.
• Ability to move fluently between technical detail and regional strategy in an ambiguous, scaling environment.

Nice To Haves

• Deep Latin America payroll experience.
• Puerto Rico, Guam, or other US-territory payroll knowledge.
• EOR or global employment experience.
• In-house payroll implementation or vendor-to-in-house migration experience.
• Payroll transformation and Product or Technology partnership experience.
• Advanced practical use of AI and automation in payroll operations.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and develop experienced payroll ICs through clear goals, candid feedback, thoughtful delegation, and effective performance management.
• Act as the technical escalation point for complex US and Canada payroll matters and provide informed coverage across Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and emerging Americas markets.
• Own operational escalations, customer calls, root-cause analysis, risk identification, and durable corrective actions.
• Manage vendor outcomes, SLAs, controls, scorecards, and accountability; challenge recommendations when needed.
• Build scalable processes, documentation, coverage plans, metrics, and operating rhythms.
• Partner across Product, Finance, Accounting, Legal and Lifecycle Operations to solve end-to-end problems.
• Drive automation, standardization, simplification, delegation, and elimination of low-value manual work.
• Support Americas expansion while sustaining payroll accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and customer trust.

Benefits

• Work from anywhere
• 40 days off per year (including holidays and vacation), or more if required by your country.
• Access Plumm, our mental well-being service.
• Wellbeing allowance in your ThanksBen wallet.
• Flexible parental leave: All new parents are eligible for at least three months’ paid leave, with job protection for up to 12 months or as required locally.
• Stipend for your laptop and home office equipment.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed