Senior Payroll Partner

Airwallex•San Francisco, CA

6d•Onsite

About The Position

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 200,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale. Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,000 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us. Attributes We Value We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor. You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next. About the team The Global Payroll team at Airwallex sits within our People & Talent function and is responsible for delivering accurate, timely and compliant payroll for employees across all of our entities and markets worldwide. They partner closely with Finance, Legal and local People Operations to navigate country-specific regulations, optimize our HR and payroll systems, and drive automation, controls and process improvements as we scale. This team plays a critical role in the overall employee experience, ensuring every team member is paid correctly while enabling data-driven insights on people costs and supporting Airwallex’s global expansion. What you’ll do We’re looking for a Senior Payroll Partner with experience in providing strategic direction to business and leading a team to work towards payroll operations, implementations /system improvements/ cost reduction, advisory, service delivery, control framework, stakeholder management, to shape long term payroll capabilities and contribution to the overall organizational mission. This role is based in San Francisco.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Business Administration, Human Resources, or a related field preferred
Minimum 5 years of regional experience working in end-to-end payroll processing
Self-motivated individual with the ability to work independently and as part of a team, with excellent time-management and organizational skills.
Familiarity with payroll vendor management, and HRIS/payroll integration projects.
Attention to detail and accuracy, with the ability to handle confidential and sensitive information securely.
Demonstrated problem-solving skills and ability to identify and resolve payroll discrepancies and issues.
Strong analytical and numerical skills, with the ability to analyze data and generate meaningful reports for management.

Nice To Haves

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with internal stakeholders at all levels
Proven ability to adapt and thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Responsibilities

Manage global payroll operations, including ensuring accurate and efficient payroll processing, compliance with region-specific securities regulations and employment tax requirements, reconciliations, month-end/year end close procedures.
Review and automate employee separation calculations templates for redundancies, resignations, terminations (Employee Termination Payments).
Provided in-depth analysis and insights on global payroll data, that can be used by Finance//HR to forecast/ understand trends in employee costs. Identify and implement improvements to Payroll processes and sub processes.
Provide advice and education to employees in relation to pay issues, award changes, new policies etc, resolving any payroll enquiries in a professional manner.
Partner with legal and HR to drive implementation of new entity set up and “Employment of Record” services as part of international expansion efforts.
Provide advice and education to employees in relation to pay issues, award changes, new policies etc, resolving any payroll enquiries in a professional manner.
Resolving employee/stakeholder queries raised via JIRA/slack channels.
Developing process payroll knowledge repository in the form of documents, FAQs, response templates.
Familiar with private equity, RSU, ESOP schemes and reporting requirements.
Drive process improvements to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and employee experience in payroll operations.
Lead the implementation of a single & unified global payroll solution for each entity in the organization.
Maximize payroll data and workflow automations by leveraging system integrations capabilities of the payroll system.
Support the evolution of payroll systems and tools to ensure effective optimisation and best practice procedures are implemented and executed.