Director, Payroll Applications & Technology

Leadstack Inc

🇺🇸 United States
On-site
Manager or above
1 day ago

Infor
UKG
SAP
AI
Agile
SOX
HRIS
SQL
Change Management
Cognos
Power BI
Excel
Scrum
ITIL

1 day ago

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Title : Director, Payroll Applications & Technology
Contract duration : 5-6 months (10/06/2026 -3/26/2027)
Location: Culver City, CA 90232(Hybrid/Remote – TBD)
Pay rate: $90- $100/hr on W2

PURPOSE

The Director, Payroll Applications & Technology is accountable for the strategy, reliability, modernization, and support of the application ecosystem that enables North American payroll.
Combining strategic leadership with practical technical depth, this Directorsets the technology roadmap, develops high-performing technical teams, governs delivery and vendor partnerships,

and provides decisive leadership for complex production issues and solution decisions.

The Director fosters a culture of ownership, disciplined execution, and continuous improvement. The roleensures teams use available data and tools to investigate issues, implement sustainable solutions, and engage vendor expertise strategically while maintaining clear internal accountability.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES
Technology Strategy & Architecture
•            Own thetechnical health, operating model, and multiyear roadmap for payroll and workforce management applications, including InforWFM and UKG Payroll.
•            Settechnology strategy and investment priorities to increase reliability, reduce complexity, modernize capabilities, and improve the payroll user experience.
•           Establish and uphold solution standards across configuration, integrations, reporting, automation, security, and controls.
•           Ensure integrations and data flowsacross Workday, SAP Finance, banking, tax, time and attendance, and related enterprise systems are resilient, documented, monitored, and
supportable.
•           Advance automation, observability, analytics, self-service, and responsible AI-enabled capabilities that improve efficiency, reliability, and decision-making.

Production Support & Operational Excellence
•           Provide senior technical leadership for complexissues involving payroll applications, integrations, data, calculations, timekeeping, access, and financial postings.
•            Leadevidence-based diagnosis through data analysis, configuration and log review, interface tracing, testing, and business validation.
•            Drivecritical incidents from containment through root-cause analysis, permanent correction, validation, documentation, and preventive action.
•            Ensuretemporary workarounds are controlled, time-bound, and replaced by sustainable solutions.
•            Lead through critical payroll cycles, releases, cutovers, go-lives, and stabilization periods, prioritizing employee, compliance, financial, and operational impact.
•           Engage vendors for specialized expertise while retaining internal ownership of diagnosis, stakeholder communication, and resolution.

Team Leadership & Capability
•            Lead, mentor, and develop payroll technology resources, building a cohesive and accountable delivery organization.
•           Set clear expectations for ownership, responsiveness, technical rigor, documentation, communication, and measurable outcomes.
•            Build durable internal capability through coaching, cross-training, support playbooks, diagnostic standards, succession planning, and knowledge management.
•            Anticipate capacity and capability gaps and implement sourcing strategies that balance internal expertise, partners, cost, and risk.
•            Foster a culture of curiosity, accountability, collaboration, inclusion, and practical innovation.

Delivery, Governance & Partnership
•            Lead payroll technology implementations, enhancements, releases, and operational initiatives using fit-for-purposeAgile and delivery practices.
•            Partner withPayroll Operations, HR IT, Finance, Global Finance Operations,
•            Participations & Residuals, Information Security, Audit, integration teams, and other stakeholders.
•            Provide concise, decision-readyexecutive communication onservice health, priorities, incidents, delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and required decisions.
•            Managetechnology budgets, Agile funding, contracts, statements of work, service levels, and vendor performance against defined outcomes.
•           Align delivery commitments to payroll-cycle timing and business criticality, proactively managing risks, dependencies, resource constraints, and contingency plans.
•            Maintaincurrent technical documentation, testing evidence, change controls, runbooks, support procedures, and audit-ready artifacts.
•            Ensuresolutions and operations comply with payroll and tax requirements,collective bargaining agreements, SOX, information security, data privacy, and audit controls.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

10+ years of progressive experience in payroll systems, HRIS, workforce management, payroll technology, or related enterprise applications, including leadership accountability for business-critical production environments.
Demonstratedhands-on experience configuring, administering, troubleshooting, or implementing enterprise payroll or workforce management platforms.
Proven success leadingcomplex incident diagnosis, root-cause analysis, technical decision-making, and resolution across applications, integrations, infrastructure dependencies, and data.
Strongunderstanding of end-to-end payroll, including Hours-to-Gross, Gross-to-Net, controls, integrations, andU.S. and Canadian payroll requirements.
Experienceleading technical teams, contractors, managed service providers, and vendors while maintaining clear accountability for outcomes.
Experience withintegrations, APIs, secure file transfers, data validation, SQL and reporting queries, testing, releases, change management, cutover, and stabilization.
Experiencemanaging technology budgets, vendor relationships, service performance, and competing operational and project priorities.
Strong executive communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to operate effectively across strategy, technical detail, operations, and people leadership.
Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline or an equivalent combination of education and professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Hands-on experience with InforWFM and UKG Payroll; experience with both platforms is strongly preferred.
Experience withWorkday Core HCM and Compensation, SAP Finance, Cognos, Power BI, SQL, advanced Excel, or comparable technologies.
Experiencesupporting complex, multi-entity U.S. and Canadian payroll environments spanningunion and non-union populations.
Knowledge ofentertainment-industry collective bargaining agreements and their implications for payroll technology, calculations, and controls.
Experienceleading payroll technology implementations, migrations, cutovers, go-lives, and post-production stabilization.
Experienceapplying automation, scripting, monitoring, analytics, or responsible AI enabled tools to improve technology support and delivery.
RelevantAgile, Scrum, ITIL, project management, payroll, or platform certification.

Director, Payroll Applications & Technology · Leadstack Inc

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