Senior Payroll Specialist

About Exotec

At Exotec, we design elegant, plug-and-play, and reliable end-to-end warehouse robotics solutions. As a leading Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Integrator, we support some of the world's most iconic brands in their transition to automation. We're proud to design technology that doesn't just redefine intralogistics, it also makes warehouses safer, faster, more efficient, and less physically demanding for the people working inside them.

Your mission

As our Senior Payroll Specialist, North America, you will own the accuracy, compliance, and continuous improvement of payroll operations across the US and Canada. This is a highly specialized role for a payroll professional who thrives on solving complex payroll challenges, optimizing processes, investigating discrepancies, and driving operational excellence. Payroll accuracy is critical to employee experience, and we are looking for someone who can proactively identify issues, strengthen controls, and eliminate recurring errors before they impact employees.

You will work closely with HR, Finance, managers, and external payroll providers to ensure timely and accurate payroll processing while helping scale and improve our North American payroll operations.

Why does this role matter?

As Exotec continues its rapid growth across North America, we are looking for a People Operations Manager to provide operational excellence and expert HR support during a key phase of organizational evolution. This role will serve as the primary People Operations partner for employees and managers, ensuring seamless HR processes, accurate payroll and benefits administration, compliance with employment regulations, and a positive employee experience.

This is a highly visible and collaborative role that works closely with employees, managers, Finance, Legal, external vendors, and global HR teams. It is ideal for an HR professional who combines deep operational expertise with a pragmatic, people-focused approach and enjoys building scalable processes in a fast-paced international environment.

What you'll do

Payroll Administration & Process Excellence

• Own end-to-end payroll operations for the US and Canada, ensuring timely, accurate, and compliant payroll processing.

• Serve as the North American payroll subject matter expert and primary point of contact for payroll-related matters.
• Review, validate, and reconcile payroll data prior to each payroll cycle, ensuring accuracy and completeness.
• Investigate payroll discrepancies, identify root causes, and implement sustainable corrective actions.
• Establish and maintain payroll controls, audits, and quality checks to proactively prevent errors before they affect employees.
• Partner closely with payroll providers, Finance, and internal stakeholders to resolve complex payroll issues and improve service delivery.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to reduce manual work, optimize payroll processes, and enhance payroll system performance.
• Support payroll reporting, reconciliations, year-end activities, audits, and compliance requirements.

HR Operations & Employee Lifecycle

• Own and administer day-to-day HR operations across North America.
• Manage employee records and HR documentation throughout the employee lifecycle, including onboarding, employment changes, leaves of absence, and offboarding.
• Ensure the accuracy, confidentiality, and integrity of employee data across HR and payroll systems.
• Maintain and improve HR operational processes, workflows, and documentation.
• Act as a trusted resource for employees and managers regarding HR policies, procedures, and operational questions.
• Partner with the global People team to deliver a seamless employee experience across all stages of the employee lifecycle.

Benefits Administration

• Administer employee benefits programs, including enrollments, changes, terminations, and employee communications.
• Manage relationships with benefits vendors and serve as the primary point of contact for benefit-related escalations.
• Support benefits audits, reporting, and compliance requirements.
• Lead initiatives aimed at improving benefits processes, employee wellbeing programs, and operational efficiency.

Compliance & Risk Management

• Ensure compliance with federal, state, provincial, and local employment and payroll regulations.
• Support leave administration, accommodation requests, and other compliance-driven processes.
• Prepare and maintain required employment documentation, reporting, and regulatory filings.
• Conduct regular audits of payroll and HR data to ensure accuracy, compliance, and process effectiveness.

Employee Relations & Manager Support

• Provide guidance to managers and employees on HR policies, workplace concerns, and people-related processes.
• Support employee relations matters and investigations while ensuring consistency, fairness, and compliance.
• Partner with managers on performance management, disciplinary actions, and workplace issues as needed.
• Foster a positive, compliant, and employee-centric work environment.

Projects & Continuous Improvement

• Lead and support cross-functional projects related to payroll optimization, HR operations, compliance, and systems enhancements.
• Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, scalability, and employee experience across North America.
• Collaborate with global HR, Finance, and business teams to align processes and reporting.
• Develop and monitor payroll and HR metrics, dashboards, and operational KPIs.

Requirements

• 5+ years of hands-on experience managing US payroll operations.
• Deep expertise in multi-state US payroll processing and payroll compliance.
• Proven experience owning payroll from input validation through post-payroll reconciliation.
• Strong knowledge of payroll taxes, wage and hour regulations, garnishments, and payroll audits.
• Experience working directly within payroll systems and identifying system-related issues or process gaps.
• Demonstrated success improving payroll processes, reducing manual activities, and increasing payroll accuracy.
• Exceptional attention to detail and a passion for finding and fixing issues before they affect employees.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to investigate complex payroll discrepancies.

Preferred

• Experience supporting Canadian payroll.
• Experience in a fast-growing international company.
• Experience with payroll system implementations, integrations, or optimization projects.

Why you'll love working here

• Make an impact by building technology that improves business performance and people's everyday work.
• Grow faster by solving complex challenges in a fast-moving company where innovation and ambition accelerate your development.
• Belong to a global team where diversity, inclusion and collaboration drive better decisions and stronger solutions.
• Connect beyond work by sharing passions, celebrating milestones and building lasting relationships that strengthen the way we work together.