Senior Payroll Partner

About Airwallex
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.
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.

Who you are
We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.
Minimum qualifications:

• 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.

Preferred qualifications:

• 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.

Applicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party Recruiters
To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.
Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.
Equal opportunity
Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don't regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
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