{"id":3984906,"url":"https://alion.io/job/watershed-global-payroll-manager","title":"Global payroll manager","company":{"id":7207,"name":"Watershed","domain":"watershed.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/watershed","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":87,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.333,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":88,"computed_at":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"}},"role":"Finance","role_family":"Finance","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":166500,"max":190000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":190000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Microsoft Excel","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-09T19:41:57Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-09","last_verified_at":"2026-11-09T21:13:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About Watershed\nWatershed is the enterprise sustainability platform. Companies like Airbnb, Carlyle Group, FedEx, Visa, and Dr. Martens use Watershed to manage climate and ESG data, produce audit-ready metrics for voluntary and regulatory reporting including CSRD, and drive real decarbonization. We are looking for team members who love product-building, want to work hard at a mission-oriented startup, and will collaborate with us in shaping the culture of a growing team.\nWe have offices in San Francisco, New York, Denver, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Mexico City, and remote team members across the US and Europe. We hope that you'll be interested in joining us!\nThe role\nAs our first dedicated payroll leader, you'll own payroll at Watershed end to end and build the controls, processes, and automation that let us grow headcount and geographies without growing manual work. You'll run payroll for our US and UK entities and oversee in-country payroll in Mexico and through our EOR partners.\nThis role is hands-on. You’ll run our day-to-day payroll operations while building the processes and automation that let the function scale as we expand. You'll partner closely with People Ops, Accounting, Legal, and Revenue Operations, and you'll be the go-to person for payroll questions across the company.\nYou will leverage AI and automation to streamline payroll workflows, applying strong judgment to determine where human oversight remains critical.\nYou will:\nBuild the global payroll function: the documentation, processes, calendars, checklists, SOPs, and controls that let payroll scale with headcount, hire and develop a team as we grow, and lead the payroll side of expanding into new geographies.\n\nOwn end-to-end global payroll, including new hires, terminations, salary changes, bonuses, commissions, and leave pay, and act as the escalation point for complex payroll issues and employee pay questions.\n\nManage our in-country payroll providers and EOR partners across multiple countries, validating inputs and outputs, evaluate the right long-term model for each country, and evaluate payroll tools and providers, recommending what to adopt based on accuracy, cost, and risk.\n\nOwn payroll configuration in Rippling and keep payroll data flowing cleanly to the general ledger as we scale, using AI and workflow automation to remove manual work.\n\nAdminister deductions and retirement contributions, including 401(k) remittances, and reconcile plan contributions to the plan administrator.\n\nMaintain compliance with payroll taxes, wages, and statutory requirements across the US and the UK, including registrations, filings, year-end reporting, and responses to tax authority notices, and support financial statements, statutory, and 401(k) plan audits with documentation and responses to auditors.\n\nAdminister sales commissions and other variable pay with Revenue Operations so plans are paid accurately and on schedule.\n\nSupport equity-related payroll processes, including withholding and reporting on exercises and vesting events, in coordination with Legal and Carta.\n\nPartner with Accounting on payroll journal entries, reconciliations, and month-end close, with the goal of bringing payroll accounting into the payroll function over time, and with People Ops on employee lifecycle events (hires, terminations, leaves, and compensation changes) so the data flowing into payroll is accurate.\n\nYou might be a fit if you:\nHave 7+ years in payroll, or in finance or accounting with substantial global payroll ownership\n\nHave hands-on US & UK payroll experience. Experience with Mexico, Australia or Germany payroll is a strong plus.\n\nHave experience working with an EOR or PEO to cover countries without a local entity.\n\nHave hands-on experience with Rippling, including payroll-to-GL integrations.\n\nEnjoy partnering closely with HR, Accounting, Revenue Operations, and external providers to keep payroll accurate and on time.\n\nAre familiar with commission and variable pay structures, and with equity compensation payroll mechanics (withholding and reporting on option exercises and RSU vesting).\n\nFeel comfortable with journal entries, accruals, and reconciliations, and with closing out your own work.\n\nAre detail-oriented, with strong Excel, data, and report-building skills, and practical experience using AI tools to reduce manual effort.\n\nAre excited to build structure and controls where none exist yet, and comfortable working hands-on while leading others.\n\nAre able to explain payroll clearly to non-experts across time zones, with sound judgment on confidentiality and when to escalate.\n\nHold a Certified Payroll Professional (CPP), Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) or an equivalent certification.\n\nMust be willing to work from an office 4 days per week (except for remote roles)\nWatershed has hub offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Mexico City and satellite offices in Denver, Sydney, Paris, and Berlin. Where we have offices, employees are expected to be in office for 4 days per week. Certain jobs are open to being remote and will be specifically noted on the jobs page and in the job description if so.\nWhat’s the interview process like?\nIt starts the same for every candidate: getting to know the team members through 1 to 2 conversations about Watershed, your experience, and your interests. Next steps can vary by role, but usual next steps are a skill or experience interview (e.g. a coding interview for an engineer, a portfolio review for a designer, deeper experience call for other roles) which leads to a virtual or in person interview panel. We prioritize transparency and lack of surprise throughout the process.\nWhat if I need accommodations for my interview?\nAt Watershed, we are dedicated to ensuring an inclusive recruitment process. We provide reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities, long-term conditions, mental health needs, religious observances, neurodivergence, or pregnancy-related support requirements. If you need assistance during your process, please contact your recruiter.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6082,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["ESG & Carbon Accounting Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-09T21:13:59Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 7 · green card filings: 2","filings_12m":7,"filings_prev_12m":3,"green_card_filings_12m":2,"median_offered_wage_usd":181389,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-09T07:32:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":88,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-09T22:32:51Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":190000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/watershed-global-payroll-manager","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/watershed-global-payroll-manager.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-09T22:32:51Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":12219,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-10T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":7207},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=7207"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwatershed-global-payroll-manager"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwatershed-global-payroll-manager"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwatershed-global-payroll-manager"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/watershed-global-payroll-manager\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwatershed-global-payroll-manager"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3984906}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"watershed.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3984906},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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