Director, Payroll Operations

Director, Payroll Operations

The University of Texas at Austin is undertaking a once-in-a-generation transformation to build a world-class academic health system in Central Texas. Anchored by Dell Medical School and the growing UT Medicine clinical enterprise, this work includes building the operational infrastructure, systems, and capabilities required to support a complex academic medical center as it continues to grow toward 2030.

A critical part of that transformation is the implementation of Workday HCM and UKG and the creation of Dell Medical School's first dedicated payroll function. The future-state payroll model must support a highly complex workforce that includes faculty, clinical staff, residents, hourly employees, multiple concurrent appointments, differentials, and shift and on-call rules while delivering accurate, compliant, timely, and auditable payroll at scale.

Within this environment, Dell Medical School is seeking a Director of Payroll Operations to serve as the organization's senior payroll subject matter leader through implementation and into ongoing operations. Reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer, this leader will initially play a key role on the Workday and UKG implementation team, translating payroll requirements into future-state processes, system design, testing, reconciliation, cutover readiness, and post-go-live stabilization.

Following implementation, the Director will lead the organization's first dedicated payroll department.

This is a builder role in the truest sense. The Director will establish the operating model, controls, governance, service expectations, team structure, and cross-functional processes for a new payroll function while ensuring UKG Pro/Workforce Management and Workday HCM work together as an integrated, scalable ecosystem. The successful leader will combine deep payroll expertise with hands-on UKG implementation experience, strong controls discipline, and the judgment to use automation and AI where they improve performance without compromising the deterministic and auditable nature of payroll.

At UT and Dell Medical School, we are not simply implementing new HR technology — we are building the operational foundation for a rapidly growing academic health system.

This is an opportunity to design a payroll function from the ground up, influence the architecture of two enterprise platforms, establish modern controls and service standards, and ultimately lead the team responsible for one of the organization's most critical employee experiences.

Our mission and culture are grounded in:

• Excellence
• Innovation
• Collaboration
• Compassion
• Stewardship
• Impact

As Director of Payroll Operations, you will have the opportunity to:

• Build Dell Medical School's first dedicated payroll function and define its future-state operating model.
• Lead payroll design and readiness across a major Workday HCM and UKG implementation.
• Shape the integration architecture between Workday and UKG for a complex academic medical center workforce.
• Establish rigorous payroll controls, reconciliation practices, governance, and service expectations.
• Use automation and AI thoughtfully to improve testing, anomaly detection, issue triage, and employee support while preserving human accountability.
• Transition from implementation leader to ongoing head of payroll, building and leading the team that will operate the function after go-live.

The ideal candidate is an accomplished payroll leader who combines deep operational expertise with hands-on technology implementation experience. You understand that payroll is both an employee experience and a high-risk financial process, and you bring the rigor necessary to ensure every payroll is accurate, timely, compliant, explainable, and auditable.

You are equally comfortable designing a future-state operating model, working through detailed UKG configuration and integration decisions, reviewing complex test scenarios, reconciling payroll variances, and building the team and processes that will ultimately own the function.

You are energized by building rather than maintaining. You can operate effectively when processes are still being defined, make sound…