Senior Payroll Product Owner & Customer Support Manager

Orion Group is seeking a Senior Payroll Product Owner & Customer Support Manager to own the payroll product experience across its operating companies. The role manages payroll product roadmaps, configuration governance, compliance, customer support, issue resolution, implementations, testing, and stabilization while partnering with Payroll, Finance, Human Resources, Operations, and Systems.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the authoritative business owner for payroll capabilities within the enterprise technology ecosystem, including COINS, time-collection applications, HR/payroll platforms, banking, and finance integrations
• Develop and maintain the product roadmap, backlog, requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, configuration decisions, and release priorities
• Lead discovery with Payroll, HR, Finance, Operations, field teams, and Operating Companies; distinguish true requirements from local preference and design scalable solutions
• Approve payroll-related configuration and product changes within delegated authority and ensure decisions are documented, tested, and traceable
• Evaluate releases and regulatory changes, determine business impact, coordinate testing, and make evidence-based production-readiness recommendations
• Own functional design and governance for pay groups, calendars, earnings, deductions, benefits, taxes, garnishments, direct deposit, PTO/accruals, reimbursements, retroactivity, corrections, and off-cycle payrolls
• Ensure time and labor rules correctly support job, service, and overhead charging; union and non-union populations; salaried and hourly employees; and mobile and employee self-service entry
• Govern payroll treatment for union agreements, certified payroll, prevailing wage, Davis-Bacon requirements, and the system's greater-of-rate logic across prevailing wage, union rates, and employee wages
• Partner with Payroll and Finance to validate labor costing, burden and accrual rates, intercompany charging, payroll journals, reconciliations, and period-close requirements
• Maintain configuration documentation, control evidence, approvals, segregation of duties, audit trails, and operating procedures suitable for a growing, control-focused enterprise
• Act as the senior functional owner for payroll questions, defects, and service interruptions; personally drive complex or high-impact cases through resolution
• Triage cases based on employee impact, payroll deadline, compliance exposure, financial impact, and breadth of affected population
• Investigate issues across configuration, master data, time entry, interfaces, taxes, calculations, approvals, security, and downstream accounting; coordinate technical resources while retaining ownership of the outcome
• Provide clear status, workaround, correction, and closure communications to employees, payroll teams, leaders, and Operating Companies
• Build and maintain knowledge articles, troubleshooting guides, training materials, known-error records, and support playbooks; coach Tier 1 and Tier 2 resources
• Lead payroll workstreams through requirements, data validation, configuration, conversion, parallel testing, cutover, first payroll, hypercare, and transition to steady-state support
• Define test scenarios that cover regular and exception payroll conditions, including new hires, terminations, transfers, rate changes, overtime, unions, prevailing wage, taxes, deductions, garnishments, PTO, reimbursements, retro pay, and corrections
• Validate payroll and employee conversion data and require reconciliation to approved source records before production use
• Deliver role-based training and readiness communications for payroll processors, managers, time approvers, employees, and support teams
• Own stabilization plans and ensure open items have accountable owners, deadlines, validated resolutions, and sustainable support documentation

Requirements:

• Active Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) or Fundamental Payroll Certification (FPC) credential from PayrollOrg is required at hire and must be maintained in good standing
• Seven or more years of progressive payroll experience, including hands-on ownership of complex, multi-state U.S. payroll
• Demonstrated expertise in payroll calculations, taxation, wage-and-hour requirements, deductions, garnishments, year-end processing, corrections, reconciliation, internal controls, and audit support
• Experience owning or administering a payroll product, payroll module, HRIS, ERP, or workforce-management platform, including requirements, configuration, testing, releases, and production support
• Demonstrated experience resolving complex payroll cases and translating recurring support issues into durable product, process, control, or training improvements
• Strong knowledge of time and labor, job costing, accounting integration, and payroll general-ledger reconciliation
• Ability to communicate clearly with employees, payroll practitioners, field leaders, executives, technical teams, vendors, and auditors
• Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, human resources, information systems, business, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience
• CPP is strongly preferred
• Experience supporting Puerto Rico payroll is strongly preferred
• Canadian payroll experience or a National Payroll Institute Payroll Compliance Professional (PCP) designation is valuable when included in the assigned scope
• Payroll ownership in construction, mechanical services, field services, or another multi-entity environment with job costing, unions, certified payroll, and prevailing wage
• COINS, ADP Workforce Now, employee self-service, mobile time capture, ERP integrations, service-management applications, or comparable enterprise payroll technology
• Acquisition integration, payroll conversion, parallel payroll, implementation cutover, and post-go-live stabilization
• SOX-ready control design, segregation of duties, audit evidence, data governance, and operation in a private-equity-backed or rapidly scaling enterprise
• Experience using service-management platforms and support analytics to manage SLAs, root cause, knowledge, and customer satisfaction