Manager, Payroll Operations

About Remote

Remote is building the infrastructure that makes global payroll and employment possible for everyone, everywhere. Our team is made up of people who want to own a piece of that work, not just contribute to it. That work happens across six continents, only Antarctica left to go, entirely remote. It also requires real fluency with AI in every role, not just familiarity with it.

Our standards are high, and the ownership is total. You'll have the trust and space to find your own way to the best answer, and the support to see it through, because that's how we build things that actually work at this scale. In return, your career grows faster, because at Remote, growth is tied to results. We're founded on the principle that where someone lives should never limit what they can achieve, and we operate exactly that way.

Job Description

Key responsibilities

Team Leadership & Performance

• Own payroll outcomes for your team, holding accountability for accuracy, timeliness, and compliance within your scope.
• Provide coaching, feedback, and day-to-day leadership to your assigned team of payroll specialists
• Lead operational investigations into payroll issues and drive resolution within defined authority.
• Provide input into performance ratings and recommend performance actions when required.
• Foster a psychologically safe, high-accountability team environment.

Payroll Operations Ownership

• Own end-to-end payroll delivery for a defined group of countries, ensuring regulatory compliance and operational consistency.
• Sustain operational working knowledge of country-specific payroll requirements within your scope.
• Ensure payroll processes are followed, documented, and auditable.
• Manage relationships with external payroll vendors relevant to your portfolio.

Global Payroll Implementations

• Actively support critical global payroll implementation initiatives, including new country launches, vendor transitions, or in-housing efforts.
• Contribute market- and country-specific payroll expertise to ensure implementations are operationally sound and sustainable.
• Identify execution risks early and partner with implementation and cross-functional teams to mitigate them.
• Own payroll outcomes for your scope post-launch, ensuring stability after go-live.

Operational Excellence & Improvement

• Identify operational risks, recurring issues, and process gaps within your payroll scope.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve team capacity.
• Support the rollout of new tools, automation, and standardized workflows.
• Track and contribute to KPIs, service levels, and quality metrics.
• Manage operational support for service arm of the business - including team performance and engagement in Zendesk

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with People Operations, Finance, Legal, Product, and Service Operations to support effective payroll delivery.
• Translate payroll complexity into clear, actionable guidance for stakeholders.
• Communicate proactively on risks, delays, or changes that may impact payroll outcomes.

What you bring

• Proven experience owning payroll outcomes for a team in regional or multi-country environments.
• Demonstrated people leadership capability, including coaching, feedback, and performance input.
• Comfortable leading investigations and driving operational resolution.
• Able to clarify and consistently apply policies and controls.
• Experience recommending hiring profiles, team changes, and performance actions.
• Strong operational judgment with the ability to balance speed, accuracy, and customer impact.
• Clear, structured written and verbal communicator, particularly effective in async environments.
• Experience working in remote-first or globally distributed teams is a strong advantage.
• Fluent in English; additional languages are a plus.

Benefits

Our full benefits & perks are explained in our handbook at remote.com/r/benefits. As a global company, each country works differently, but some benefits/perks are for all Remoters:

• work from anywhere
• flexible paid time off
• flexible working hours (we are async)
• 16 weeks paid parental leave
• budget towards co-working spaces,