Global Payroll Escalations & Project Lead

About the role
Rippling’s Global Payroll Operations team manages payroll processing and services across 80+ countries around the world. As Rippling continues expanding globally, we are looking for a hyper-focused, customer-obsessed Escalations Lead to serve as our primary champion for customer experience when critical issues arise. This role is driven by a desire to make rapid, lasting improvements that immediately impact the experience of both our largest enterprise accounts and our smallest growing businesses.
You are part technical detective and part cross-functional project manager. When sticky, high-friction problems hit, you jump straight into action, unraveling complex scenarios into actionable components. You possess a deep understanding of our product behavior, thrive on rigorous root-cause analysis, and are relentless about driving end-to-end fixes alongside R&D counterparts, internal ops, and cross-functional leadership. You build trust effortlessly with customers, communicate with exceptional clarity, and translate frontline operational friction into high-value product roadmap items.
This is a high-visibility opportunity offering deep exposure to global product operations and an immediate, direct impact on our product quality and customer retention.
What you will do
Own end-to-end management of executive escalations: Serve as the subject-matter expert and drive resolution of complex, cross-functional problems. Orchestrate internal stakeholders to collaborate efficiently, demonstrating control and leadership in high-stakes situations. Communicate complex scenarios with simple, clear, and strategic written and verbal communications.
Customer Management and Communication: Jump into high-stakes customer escalations to stabilize critical issues and build immediate trust. Deconstruct problems into crisp updates for our customers and internal stakeholders.
Project Manage Incidents: Bring structure to high-friction situations by coordinating action plans, ownership, and cross-functional execution.
Root-Cause Analysis: Unravel complex technical and operational issues into actionable components, leading RCAs to prevent recurrence. When an incident or customer escalation arises, you rapidly root cause the situation and develop a plan forward.
Analyze trends and root causes : Conduct thorough root cause analysis on each escalation to identify trends and drive effective process improvement. Share trends analysis with executive leadership.
Partner directly with customers : Engage with customers to navigate complex challenges, resolve critical issues, and strengthen their trust in Rippling’s products and services.
Drive End-to-End Fixes: Partner relentlessly with R&D and Ops to deliver durable fixes and critical roadmap items
What you will need
3+ Years Experience: Escalations Management, Account Management, Strategic Customer Support, or Operations at a fast-growing tech company.
Obsessive Customer Focus: Passion for user experience and a track record of building immediate trust in high-stress moments.
High Focus and Ability to Handle Pressure: Hyper-focused under pressure with a strong bias for action during critical incidents.
Product & Technical Curiosity: Deep drive to understand product behavior and perform rigorous root-cause analysis.
R&D Partnership: Strong collaborative muscle to influence Product, Engineering, and CX on permanent fixes.
Structured Communication: Ability to break down complex issues into clear, actionable steps for both technical and executive audiences. Adept at managing communications for both internal and external stakeholders.
Extremely driven and ambitious with a bias for action
Have a solid track record of achievement - e.g., consistently delivered measurable business impact, quickly assumed increasing responsibility, or earned competitive recognition/ awards
Quick learner with the ability to adapt to a fast-paced, high-growth environment
Have excellent written and verbal com