Senior Workday Payroll Architect

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Workday Payroll Architect based in United States.

As a Senior Workday Payroll Architect, you will own the design, configuration, implementation, and ongoing operation of Workday Payroll, Time Tracking, and Absence.
You’ll play a critical role in a major HRIS transformation, ensuring payroll processes are accurate, compliant, scalable, and reliable across U.S. and international populations.
Working closely with People, Payroll Operations, Finance, Accounting, Engineering, and implementation partners, you’ll translate complex requirements into robust Workday solutions.
Your scope will span payroll calculations, taxation, time and absence rules, integrations, accounting, controls, data validation, and release management.
You’ll serve as a hands-on subject matter expert and a key point of escalation when payroll results or integrations require investigation.
The role combines deep Workday configuration expertise with operational rigor, cross-functional collaboration, and ownership in a fast-growing environment.
This is a hybrid position requiring presence in either the San Francisco or San Jose office four days per week, with Tuesday currently designated as the work-from-home day.

• Lead Workday implementation: Serve as the functional lead for Payroll, Time Tracking, and Absence, driving design sessions, configuration decisions, tenant build and testing, readiness assessments, parallel testing, cutover, and hypercare.
• Configure U.S. and Canada payroll: Configure and maintain pay groups, earnings and deductions, pay component groups, federal, state, and local taxation, garnishments, payroll accounting, and period-end and year-end processes, including W-2s and quarterly filings.
• Manage international payroll: Design and operate the data flows between Workday and international payroll providers, including payroll input files, returned results, general ledger posting, and country-level reconciliation.
• Own Time Tracking: Configure work schedules, time entry codes, overtime calculations, meal and rest break rules, shift differentials, approvals, and applicable state-specific requirements for hourly and non-exempt populations.
• Manage Absence: Build and maintain absence plans across U.S. and international populations, covering flexible PTO, jurisdiction-specific sick leave accruals, statutory leave, and leave-of-absence types, including eligibility, accrual, carryover, and payout rules.
• Oversee integrations and data: Own payroll-related integrations with benefits carriers, 401(k) providers, tax filing partners, equity compensation systems, and the general ledger, while ensuring Workday, payroll results, and accounting data remain aligned.
• Partner on payroll operations: Work closely with Payroll Operations and Accounting during payroll cycles, including retroactive calculations, off-cycle payments, pre- and post-payroll audits, reconciliations, and root-cause analysis.
• Strengthen compliance and controls: Design payroll processes and Workday security to support SOX ITGC and payroll control requirements, including segregation of duties, approval workflows, audit trails, and evidence capture.
• Manage releases and improvements: Assess the impact of Workday's semi-annual releases, conduct regression testing, and adopt functionality that improves efficiency and reduces manual work.
• Enable the organization: Create documentation, train HR, managers, and Payroll teams, and develop reports and dashboards that enable effective self-service and operational visibility.

Requirements

• Experience: 10+ years of experience in HRIS or payroll systems, including at least 6+ years of hands-on Workday Payroll, Time Tracking, and Absence configuration experience.
• Implementation leadership: Proven experience taking at least one Workday Payroll implementation live as the functional lead, ideally with Time Tracking and Absence included in the same implementation.
• Workday expertise: Strong command of payroll business processes, the Workday calculation engine, calculated fields, pay component logic, custom reporting, tax configuration, retro processing, and payroll accounting. Workday Payroll, Time Tracking, or Absence certification, or equivalent partner experience, is strongly preferred.
• Global payroll: Experience running or integrating international payroll through Workday, including Global Payroll Connect partners or custom integrations, with an understanding of multi-country data, timing, and reconciliation requirements.
• U.S. payroll knowledge: Strong knowledge of multi-state taxation, FLSA, wage and hour requirements, particularly California rules, garnishments, imputed income, equity and RSU withholding, and year-end payroll processes.
• Compliance and controls: Experience working in a SOX or audit-facing environment, with a strong understanding of segregation of duties, approvals, controls, and audit evidence.
• Operational rigor: Thorough approach to testing and documentation, with a commitment to validating payroll changes through parallel runs or reconciliations before production deployment.
• Cross-functional communication: Ability to translate complex payroll concepts for People, Payroll, Accounting, and Engineering stakeholders, adapting communication to both technical and business audiences.
• Adaptability: Comfortable working in an environment characterized by rapid growth, evolving requirements, increasing headcount, and expansion into new countries.
• Problem solving: Strong ownership and persistence when investigating unexpected payroll results, integrations, or calculation issues.
• Additional experience: Familiarity with Workday HCM, Benefits, and Compensation; migrations from platforms such as Rippling; Workday Pro certifications; international payroll providers such as ADP Celergo, CloudPay, Papaya Global, or Deel; NetSuite, Okta, Lumos, Workato, or BigQuery; IPO readiness; and AI tools for testing, documentation, or reconciliation are valued.

Benefits

• Compensation: $278,000–$325,000 USD annually.
• Equity: Generous cash and equity compensation.
• Healthcare: Health, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
• Retirement: 401(k) plan with a 2% company match for U.S. employees.
• Paid time off: Flexible paid time off plan.
• Additional stipends: Wellness and commuter stipends are available for select roles.
• Work model: Hybrid work arrangement with four days per week in either the San Francisco or San Jose office and Tuesday currently designated as the work-from-home day.
• Compensation flexibility: Final salary may vary above or below the stated range based on qualifications and other relevant factors.