Senior Payroll Consultant

Darwinbox; Dubai; On-site; AED 260,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Darwinbox, based in DIFC, Dubai, is seeking a Senior Payroll Consultant to anchor end-to-end payroll solutions for GCC clients. You will lead discovery, define blueprints, drive testing, and own go-live across UAE, KSA, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt.

This is a pure individual contributor role with heavy client interaction and product feedback. Fluent Arabic is required to engage effectively with stakeholders across the region.

Qualifications

• Arabic fluency is required for the role.
• Strong payroll domain knowledge needed across GCC/MENA contexts.

Responsibilities

• Lead client discovery, workshops and solution design with senior payroll, HR, and Finance stakeholders.
• Own the Blueprint end-to-end and secure client sign-off before configuration.
• Set client expectations on what is doable and what requires effort with clear reasoning.
• Walk the client through registers, outputs, and statutory reports at each validation checkpoint to enable client validation.
• Partner with the Central Delivery Team on configuration; review and validate before it reaches the client.
• Run internal test cycles, drive UAT, and lead parallel payroll; troubleshoot calculation deltas and coordinate resolution.
• Own cutover, YTD loads, and go-live for each engagement; deliver payroll functional training to client power users.
• Build deep payroll product knowledge in 3-6 months and provide practitioner voice into Product & Engineering on localization and gaps.
• Drive engagements to closure and ensure clients go-live and stabilize their payroll processes.

Skills

Arabic fluency

Payroll expertise

Client-facing consulting

Job description

Darwinbox- one of Asia’s fastest Unicorns based out of DIFC, Dubai - is a mobile-first, AI-enabled cloud-based HR platform that partners with enterprises to unlock their HR potential. They automate an organization’s HR needs across the entire hire-to-retire employee lifecycle from Recruitment, Onboarding, Core transactions (Leave, attendance & Payroll) to engagement, Performance Management and People Analytics.

They support 800+ global enterprises covering 2+million employees across 143 countries (e.g., Nivea, Starbucks, Sephora, Zara, and AXA, along with Ghassan Aboud, Al Zayani, Property Finder, EFS Facilities Services, Jashanmal, Alinco, Lulu Group in the region). With marquee investors including the likes of Microsoft, Salesforce, Sequoia, TCV- they are the only Asian origin vendor on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and are rated the highest globally at 4.8/5 Gartner’s customer review platform- Peer Insights.

ROLE PURPOSE

Act as Senior Payroll Consultant and functional SME for MENA - anchoring end-to-end payroll solutioning for GCC clients across UAE, KSA, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt. Frontend clients through discovery, own the Blueprint, drive UAT and parallel runs, and act as the practitioner voice into Product on statutory and functional gaps across the region.

This is a Senior Consultant role scoped as a pure individual contributor. The person is expected to lead engagements and drive outcomes through influence across the Central Delivery Team, product, and technical teams - not through direct people management.

PRODUCT SME MANDATE

This role is not only about running MENA delivery - it is about building product depth fast and using it to shape what gets built for the region.

• Deep product depth within 3-6 months - sustained thereafter through hands-on validation, not delegation.
• Practitioner voice into Product & Engineering on MENA statutory changes and functional gaps.
• Input on MENA localization roadmap - statutory gaps, country enhancements, and recurring client requirements.

Key Responsibilities

Client-Facing Solutioning (GCC-6)

• Frontend clients through discovery, requirement-gathering workshops, and solution design; run the room with senior Payroll, HR, and Finance stakeholders.
• Own the Blueprint document end-to-end - capture requirements, map them to product capability, document workarounds where the product doesn't natively support, and secure client sign-off before configuration begins.
• Set client expectations clearly on what is doable, what is doable with effort, and what is not doable - with reasoning, not deflection.
• Walk the client through registers, outputs, and statutory reports at each validation checkpoint so they can meaningfully review before approval - the user must be able to validate, not just rubber-stamp.

Configuration, Testing & Payroll Cycles

• Partner with the Central Delivery Team on configuration; review and validate before it reaches the client.
• Run internal test cycles, drive UAT, and lead parallel payroll - troubleshoot calculation deltas, own root-cause analysis, and coordinate resolution across configuration, product, and engineering.
• Own cutover, YTD loads, and go-live for each engagement; deliver payroll functional training to client power users.

Product SME & Roadmap Contribution

• Build deep working knowledge of the payroll product in the first 3-6 months; sustain that depth thereafter through hands-on validation, not delegation.
• Act as the practitioner voice into Product & Engineering on MENA payroll - statutory changes, localization gaps, and recurring client requirements - with enough specificity to drive product decisions.
• Provide input on MENA feature prioritization and, over time, validate new country features before they reach live clients.

Engagement Ownership

• Drive engagements to closure. Escalate early, coordinate across teams, and stay with the ball until the client is live and stable.
• Waiting to be chased, or dropping threads at handoff boundaries, is not the bar.

Looking for candidates who can fluently speak Arabic