Payroll Manager

Amplēo HR is seeking an experienced payroll professional to join our team as a Payroll Manager. You'll be embedded with multiple client organizations as their day-to-day payroll lead, owning end-to‑end payroll operations and building the instincts and client skills that define a great fractional payroll professional.

This is not a support role. You own your clients' payroll function. You'll be moving fast, solving real problems, and developing the kind of judgment that only comes from running payroll across multiple organizations, systems, and states at once.

You'll work as part of our team of HR Consultants and alongside a Deal Partner who provides strategic oversight and access to the Amplēo Toolbox of proprietary frameworks, templates, and playbooks.

This role is for someone who genuinely wants to be a consultant, not an in-house payroll leader at one company. You'll thrive on variety, autonomy, and the pace that comes with serving several clients t importantly, you'll embody Amplēo's core operating principle: a consultant the CEO never has to manage.

Every Amplēo consultant, at every level, is evaluated against a single distinction: are we an investment, or are we an expense?

An investment finds the work before being asked, proposes solutions to risks the client hasn't noticed, (the misclassified worker, the stale state tax account, the garnishment that was never set up), treats a silent inbox as a signal to dig deeper, and presents ready-to-sign work rather than new questions. The CEO never has to manage the payroll function.

An expense waits for assignments, answers only the questions asked, treats a quiet client as "everything is fine," and hands tasks back for the client to review and approve.

Investments don't get cut. Expenses do. Every responsibility below assumes you are operating as an investment, regardless of which level you join at.

You are a seasoned payroll professional who knows how to operate in the gray. You're comfortable stepping into client environments that are evolving, sometimes unstructured, and often running on legacy processes or a patchwork of systems. You don't need everything to be perfectly defined to move forward. You use strong judgment and payroll instincts to assess situations quickly, prioritize what matters most, and take action.

You are highly organized and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple clients, pay cycles, and deadlines at once without letting anything slip. You can switch context quickly and seamlessly, moving from a payroll run to a tax notice to a system migration without missing a beat. You understand that no positional authority comes with this role, and you know how to build influence through trust, expertise, and results.

You are a doer. You don't just advise, you execute. You take ownership of outcomes, follow through, and make things happen without needing to be chased down. You understand that payroll has no grace period: you balance speed with precision, and you know when to move quickly and when to slow down and get it right.

You bring a client-first mindset to everything you do. You build trust quickly, communicate clearly, and operate as a true partner to business leaders. You can explain a payroll tax issue or a process gap in plain business terms, and you understand that great payroll is not about process for its own sake, but about ensuring every employee is paid accurately, on time, and in full, so the business can run better.

You are adaptable and resourceful. You can shift between strategic thinking and hands-on execution with ease, and you're energized by the opportunity to build, fix, and improve. You're comfortable navigating competing…