Payroll Operations Manager, Americas

✨ One platform, a whole world of opportunity

The best jobs have always clustered in a handful of the world's wealthiest cities. But talent is everywhere. Oyster set out to close that gap - building a global employment platform that lets companies hire, pay, and care for brilliant people anywhere.

We're proof that a high-performing culture doesn't need an office. Distributed across 60+ countries since 2020, we've built something the industry keeps noticing:

Ranked #10 of 250 on TIME and Statista's 2026 list of America's Top WorkTech Companies

Named one of America's Greatest Startup Workplaces 2026 by Newsweek

A G2 Spring 2026 Leader across Employer of Record, Global Employment, Multi-country Payroll, and HR Compliance

The only B Corp-certified global employment platform ~ independently verified since 2023

Two of those rankings measured our business impact from the outside. One measured how our own people feel about working here. They landed in the same place ~ because at Oyster, culture and performance aren't separate conversations. They're the same one.

And we're just getting started. If you want to do the best work of your career alongside people who care as much as you do, we'd love for you to apply.

Location: While this position is posted in a specific location, all of Oyster’s positions are fully remote, and you can work from home. Forever. To create the best experience for this employee and to meet the business needs, this role requires you to be based in Americas.
Role Summary
The Payroll Operations Manager, (Americas) is a technically credible people leader who will shape and scale payroll operations across the region. You will lead an experienced distributed team, own operational escalations and vendor outcomes, and partner across the business to improve controls, customer experience, and service delivery. The role requires deep US and Canada payroll expertise, working knowledge of key Latin American markets, strong equity-payroll knowledge, and an automation-first approach to growth.
Key Responsibilities
Lead, coach, and develop experienced payroll ICs through clear goals, candid feedback, thoughtful delegation, and effective performance management.

Act as the technical escalation point for complex US and Canada payroll matters and provide informed coverage across Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and emerging Americas markets.

Own operational escalations, customer calls, root-cause analysis, risk identification, and durable corrective actions.

Manage vendor outcomes, SLAs, controls, scorecards, and accountability; challenge recommendations when needed.

Build scalable processes, documentation, coverage plans, metrics, and operating rhythms.

Partner across Product, Finance, Accounting, Legal and Lifecycle Operations to solve end-to-end problems.

Drive automation, standardization, simplification, delegation, and elimination of low-value manual work.

Support Americas expansion while sustaining payroll accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and customer trust.

Core Requirements
Deep US and Canada payroll expertise, including multi-state and provincial compliance.

Practical exposure to Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia payroll operations.

Strong equity-payroll knowledge.

Expertise in payroll controls, reconciliation, risk, escalation management, root-cause analysis, and SLA/KPI ownership.

Proven vendor-management and vendor-accountability experience.

Experience leading senior, experienced payroll ICs without micromanaging.

Evidence of process improvement with concrete, measurable outcomes.

Remote or distributed people-leadership experience.

Ability to move fluently between technical detail and regional strategy in an ambiguous, scaling environment.

Bonus / Nice-to-Have Experience
Deep Latin America payroll experience.

Puerto Rico, Guam, or other US-territory payroll knowledge.

EOR or global employment experience.

In-house payroll implementation or vendor-to-in-house migration e