Payroll SME / Lead (UK)

About Rippling Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system. Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365—all within 90 seconds. Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from the world’s top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes. We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @ Rippling.com addresses. About the Role We are seeking a highly experienced and technically profound payroll expert to step into the role of Payroll Lead. In this role, you will leverage your deep technical expertise to drive excellence within our global support organization. This is a mission-critical position where you will serve as the ultimate Subject Matter Expert (SME), bridging deep country-specific payroll compliance with product functionality. You will leverage your 5-7 years of hands-on payroll experience not to execute payroll, but to audit, verify, and validate how the Rippling system processes payroll for your country. You will be the crucial link between local regulatory compliance and our global technology platform, ensuring our processes are compliant, efficient, and robust. You will be responsible for ensuring superior customer support, driving product improvements through data-driven insights, and proactively building a robust knowledge base for your expertise in the UK region. If you thrive at the intersection of complex payroll regulation and cutting-edge SaaS technology, this role is for you. Your primary mission is to optimize the system, enable our internal support teams, and serve as the final authority on complex payroll compliance product logic. What You Will Do Be the regional expert for Global Payroll and HR solutions within your assigned customer region as part of our Support team. Develop and maintain clear, accurate country-specific content, documentation, and FAQs to support both customers and internal teams. Analyze customer support interactions to identify trends and opportunities to improve the support experience. Partner with regional Product Managers to provide insights on support volume, customer feedback, and critical compliance concerns. Collaborate directly with Engineering, Product Managers, and Tax Ops to communicate compliance requirements, test new features, and ensure payroll logic is correctly built and maintained. Serve as a senior resource and point of escalation for Customer Support Specialists on complex, region-specific payroll issues. Personally own and resolve the most challenging customer cases by leveraging your deep platform and country-specific payroll expertise. General Qualifications (Required for all Candidates) 5–7 years of hands-on UK payroll experience, including full end-to-end processing. Prior experience within a global payroll provider or HR technology environment is strongly preferred. Deep knowledge of UK payroll regulations, including PAYE (Pay As You Earn), National Insurance (NI), Statutory Payments (SSP, SMP, etc.), and other deductions. Strong understanding of payroll processing, wage components, Benefits in Kind (BIK), and compliance reporting through HMRC. Strong client-facing skills with experience managing enterprise customer relationships. Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with a proven ability to investigate and resolve complex payroll discrepancies. A passion for documentation and knowledge-sharing. Exceptional communication skills and fluency in Englis