Director, Payroll Applications & Technology

Location:

Culver City, CA

Onsite Flexibility:
Hybrid

• Position Type: Contract
• Contract Duration: 5 months
• Pay Rate: $80.00–$95.00 / Hour (USD)
• Work Authorization: Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

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 Director sets 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 role ensures teams use available data and tools to investigate issues, implement sustainable solutions, and engage vendor expertise strategically while maintaining clear internal accountability.

• Own the technical health, operating model, and multi-year roadmap for payroll and workforce management applications, including Infor WFM and UKG Payroll
  .
• Set technology 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 flows across 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.

• Provide senior technical leadership for complex issues involving payroll applications, integrations, data, calculations, timekeeping, access, and financial postings.
• Lead evidence-based diagnosis through data analysis, configuration and log review, interface tracing, testing, and business validation.
• Drive critical incidents from containment through root-cause analysis, permanent correction, validation, documentation, and preventive action.
• Ensure temporary 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.

• 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.

• Lead payroll technology implementations, enhancements, releases, and operational initiatives using fit-for-purpose Agile and delivery practices.
• Partner with Payroll Operations, HR IT, Finance, Global Finance Operations, Participations & Residuals, Information Security, Audit, integration teams, and other stakeholders.
• Provide concise, decision-ready executive communication on service health, priorities, incidents, delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and required decisions.
• Manage technology 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.
• Maintain current technical documentation, testing evidence, change controls, runbooks, support procedures, and audit-ready artifacts.
• Ensure solutions and operations comply with payroll and tax requirements,…