Rippling
Director, Global Payroll Compliance
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About the role
Payroll accuracy is non-negotiable. Every calculation, filing, and statutory deadline is a promise Rippling makes to customers and to the regulators who oversee them. Across our premium Global Payroll markets, that promise is kept by a team of Product Compliance experts embedded directly inside R&D. These experts sit alongside the local Product Lead and shape what gets built, how, and why. They write specs, test the product against regulatory requirements, and sit shoulder-to-shoulder with engineers to answer questions and provide feedback before anything reaches a customer.
We're looking for a Director to own our existing Global Payroll Compliance function: Per premium country, 1-2 Product Compliance experts are embedded in the organisation. These experts are an integral part of the local operating model that enables us to provide a premium payroll experience for customers in each market. They collaborate with stakeholders across a wide range of functions - next to R&D also spanning TaxOps, Support, and Implementation for solving real customer problems whenever these require compliance expertise. They also audit each country's software continuously, ensuring it abides by new local regulation.
This is as much a build role as a run role. You'll inherit a team that's already delivering, but you'll be the first person accountable for it as a function - defining what your team can decide independently, what needs escalation, and to whom, in close partnership with our corporate Compliance organisation.
Location: London - the team you'll lead is distributed across our premium Global Payroll markets (Canada, UK, India, Singapore, Australia, Germany, France)
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What you'll do
- Lead the team. Coach and manage the Product Compliance leads embedded in each premium GP country, and build the career path for this function as it extends into new markets.
- Own the operating model. Formalise how Product Compliance works inside and outside of R&D - what's decided independently, what requires sign-off, and the escalation path for the rest - in partnership with our second-line Corporate Compliance function.
- Own regulatory monitoring and the global compliance roadmap. Ensure every market has clear visibility into compliance gaps and upcoming regulatory changes, with a defined process to document and spec them, and work closely with country Product Leads to get ahead of issues.
- Ensure global payroll accuracy. Own local quality reviews, audit preparation, and remediation across every market, and drive diagnosis with local compliance experts when payroll incidents occur.
- Partner across the business. Be the executive connective layer between Product Compliance on the one side and R&D, TaxOps, Support, Implementation, Legal, and Sales/GTM on the other.
- Own Help Center articles and communications. Build and maintain accurate, actionable content - help articles, country guides, regulatory notices - in partnership with PMs and Customer Education, so customers always have a reliable compliance experience.
- Define compliance year-end best practices. Year-end is a deadline that cannot slip - coordinate all year-end deliverables for each market (statutory filings, declarations, deadlines, and cross-functional dependencies) end-to-end, so customers close the fiscal year without surprises.
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What you'll need
- 12+ years of experience in payroll, tax, or regulatory compliance, including meaningful people-leadership experience managing distributed subject-matter experts across multiple countries or jurisdictions.
- Proven ability to operate inside a product and engineering organization, not just alongside it - comfortable writing specs, reviewing designs, and participating in engineering rituals.
- Working knowledge of payroll compliance across at least some of our premium markets (Canada, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, India). Breadth across several is a strong plus.
- Strong systems thinking: Able to build one consistent operating model across countries with different regulatory regimes and different levels of product maturity.
- Comfort with ambiguity: this is a new leadership layer for an existing team, so you'll be defining the operating model as much as running it.
- Excellent stakeholder management across Product, Engineering, TaxOps, Legal, Compliance, and GTM.
- High ownership mindset: Accountable for compliance outcomes, not just for managing the process around them.
- Strong alignment with our leadership principles, in particular Go and See, and Challenge Each Other Directly.
If you don't meet every qualification listed, we still encourage you to apply. Skills and experiences can show up in many forms, and we value diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
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