Payroll Lead (India & UAE) - HighLevel

Who You Are:

You are the Payroll Lead who owns end-to-end payroll operations for India and the UAE, bringing order, precision, and scale to how we pay our people. You will report to the Senior Manager, Global Payroll, overseeing operations in close partnership with HR, Finance, and external payroll service providers. This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports, focused on stabilizing payroll operations, ensuring accuracy and timeliness, and driving operational efficiency. You champion workforce compliance across statutory standards for both geographies.

What You’ll Be Doing:

Payroll

• Independently lead and govern end-to-end payroll for India and UAE, ensuring accuracy and timeliness across all monthly disbursements, including oversight of payroll inputs, processing, and final bank funding.
• Validate attendance, leave, variable pay, incentives, reimbursements, and full-and-final settlement inputs against HRIS and finance records before each payroll run.
• Perform rigorous reviews of payroll registers, variance reports, CTC, and reconciliation files to validate data integrity and ensure alignment with financial controls and internal audit standards.
• Stabilize and optimize relationships with external payroll service providers by setting clear performance benchmarks and conducting regular audits to drive service excellence.
• Transform the current payroll ecosystem by identifying process bottlenecks and implementing technology-driven solutions that increase automation and reduce manual intervention.

Compliance

• Champion workforce compliance across teams by serving as the primary subject matter expert on Indian labour laws, Provident Fund, ESIC, Income Tax regulations, and Payroll SOX requirements.
• Mitigate corporate risk by leading statutory filing activities and ensuring monthly, quarterly, and annual payroll-related returns are submitted accurately to government authorities.
• Support internal, statutory, and external audits; prepare payroll-related MIS, accruals, and reconciliations for Finance; and maintain audit-ready documentation at all times.
• Track changes in Indian and UAE labour law, tax regulations, and social security requirements, and proactively update processes and stakeholders.

Employee Support

• Act as the first point of contact for payroll, tax, and benefits queries; ensure payslips, Form 16 / tax documents, and salary certificates are issued accurately and on time.
• Work closely with HR, Finance, Legal, and Total Rewards teams on compensation changes, benefits and equity administration, and new market/entity payroll setup.

System Management

• Own and administer Darwinbox as the system of record for payroll, ensuring data integrity and seamless flow between the HR and payroll modules.
• Manage payroll-related configuration, user access, and integrations between Darwinbox and downstream finance/banking systems.
• Troubleshoot system issues and liaise with the Darwinbox support/People Tech team on fixes, upgrades, and enhancements.
• Drive automation of payroll workflows within Darwinbox to reduce manual intervention and improve turnaround time.