Senior Payroll Specialist

Job Description

Senior Payroll Specialist

Location: Remote (LATAM) - must maintain at least 5 hours of daily overlap with U.S. Pacific Time business hours

Compensation: $30,000–$40,000 USD annually

Reports to: VP of Finance

Team: Finance

About TubeScience

TubeScience is a performance-driven creative and media company that helps brands create, test, and scale high-performing video advertising.

We operate in a fast-moving, highly collaborative environment where accuracy, ownership, and thoughtful service matter.

We’re looking for an experienced payroll professional to own U.S. payroll, contractor payments, and Employer of Record (EOR) payroll support across the company.

This is a hands-on individual contributor role for someone who can independently run payroll, solve complex issues, and maintain reliable processes and controls.

The Role

You’ll own the day-to-day execution and administration of payroll and contractor payments, partnering closely with Finance, HR, Accounting, employees, and external payroll partners.

Success in this role means our people are paid accurately and on time, payroll data remains clean, discrepancies are resolved quickly, and our processes stay compliant and audit-ready as the company grows.

What You’ll Do

• Own regular and off-cycle U.S. payroll processing in Rippling.
• Validate new hires, terminations, compensation changes, bonuses, deductions, reimbursements, and other payroll inputs.
• Administer and reconcile contractor payments.
• Coordinate payroll and bonus processing for employees engaged through EOR partners.
• Validate EOR payroll calculations and reconcile invoices and statements against internal records.
• Manage multi-state payroll requirements, including tax withholding, final pay, state registrations, tax notices, filings, and reconciliations.
• Administer benefits deductions, garnishments, retirement contributions, and other payroll deductions.
• Maintain accurate payroll and employee data in Rippling and troubleshoot configurations, reports, workflows, and records.
• Investigate payroll discrepancies, identify root causes, and drive issues through resolution.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for employee payroll questions.
• Support payroll-related audits, census requests, and benefits or insurance reviews.
• Manage year-end payroll activities, including W-²⁄₁₀₉₉ processing, annual reconciliations, and related tax requirements.
• Maintain payroll SOPs and controls and identify opportunities to improve accuracy, efficiency, and audit readiness.

Who You Are

You’re an experienced payroll professional with direct ownership of U.S. payroll—not someone whose experience has primarily been coordinating payroll inputs for another person or provider to process.

You have:

• 5+ years of payroll experience, including at least 3 years directly administering U.S. payroll.
• Hands-on experience processing payroll in Rippling.
• Experience managing multi-state U.S. payroll; California and/or New York experience is strongly preferred.
• Strong knowledge of U.S. payroll taxes, wage deductions, federal and state requirements, final pay, and off-cycle payroll.
• Experience independently investigating and resolving payroll discrepancies.
• Strong Excel or Google Sheets skills, particularly for reconciliations and payroll reporting.
• Strong numerical reasoning and exceptional attention to detail.
• Professional fluency in spoken and written English.
• Strong communication and customer-service skills when handling sensitive employee payroll questions.
• The ability to work independently, manage recurring deadlines, and take ownership in a fast-paced environment.

Bonus Experience

• Payroll tax registrations, notices, and agency correspondence.
• 401(k), workers’ compensation, or payroll tax audits.
• Employee census requests and benefits reconciliations.
• EOR payroll administration.
• Contractor payment administration.
• Year-end W-2 and 1099 processing.
• Experience supporting a U.S.-based company from LATAM.
• Experience in a startup or high-growth environment.

You’ll Thrive Here If You…

• Take ownership of problems from identification through resolution.
• Care deeply about accuracy and catch discrepancies others might miss.
• Are comfortable investigating complex payroll issues independently.
• Balance strong controls with the need to move quickly.
• Communicate clearly and patiently with employees and internal stakeholders.
• Look for ways to make processes more reliable rather than simply following existing ones.

This Role Probably Isn’t For You If…

• Your payroll experience has primarily involved collecting or submitting information for someone else to process.
• You haven’t directly administered U.S. payroll.
• You don’t have hands-on experience with Rippling.
• You prefer HR-generalist work over deep payroll ownership.
• You’re looking for a people-management role rather than a hands-on individual contributor position.

Why TubeScience

You’ll own a critical operational function with a direct impact on employees across the company.

You’ll work closely with senior Finance and HR stakeholders, have meaningful ownership over how payroll operates, and help build reliable processes that can scale with the business.

If you’re an experienced U.S. payroll professional who values accuracy, ownership, and solving problems end-to-end, we’d love to hear from you.