Payroll Project Technical Lead

SD Guthrie International; Petaling Jaya; On-site; MYR 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

SD Guthrie International is seeking a Payroll Project Technical Lead to oversee the technical aspects of the Global Payroll Transformation. This full-time role spans multiple countries and business units, ensuring design integrity, data migration, testing, and smooth go-live operations.

The ideal candidate has 5–8 years of hands-on SAP Payroll experience, strong knowledge of SAP HCM/Payroll, SAP ECC/S/4HANA, and ABAP, plus proven ability to manage cross-functional stakeholders and vendor

Qualifications

• 5–8 years of hands-on SAP Payroll implementation and support experience.
• Strong knowledge of SAP Payroll configuration, PCRs, wage types and control records.
• Experience with multi-country payroll projects and data migration.
• Ability to review designs and migration approaches from partners.
• Familiarity with SIT/UAT, cutover, parallel runs and post-go-live support.

Responsibilities

• Provide SAP Payroll technical leadership for global transformation projects.
• Ensure technical quality and integrity of solution design, data migration and testing.
• Challenge partner solutions to align with SAP standards and security.
• Coordinate with HR, IT, Finance and vendors to resolve technical issues.
• Identify and escalate technical risks, defects and design gaps.
• Oversee SIT, UAT, parallel runs, cutover and production deployment readiness.
• Maintain technical documentation, interfaces and handover artifacts.
• Provide recommendations for go/no-go decisions in technical domains.

Skills

SAP Payroll

HCM/Payroll

S/4HANA

ABAP debugging

Data migration

UAT/SIT coordination

Workday integrations

Stakeholder management

Vendor management

Education

SAP HCM/Payroll certification

Tools

SAP ECC Payroll

SAP S/4HANA

ABAP

Workday interfaces

Job description

Job Description

The Payroll Project Technical Lead will involve full time in managing the technical aspect of the implementation.

IMPACT / ACCOUNTABILITY

• Responsible for providing SAP Payroll technical leadership for the Global Payroll Transformation Project, supporting implementation across multiple countries and business units.
• Accountable for the technical quality and integrity of SAP Payroll solution design, configuration, integration, data migration, testing, cutover and post-go-live stabilisation activities.
• Reviews and challenges technical solutions, configuration decisions and migration approaches proposed by implementation partners to ensure alignment with business requirements, SAP standards, security requirements and the approved project architecture.
• Works closely with country HR and payroll teams, Group IT, Finance, Workday teams, implementation partners and payroll service providers to resolve technical issues and ensure end-to-end solution readiness.
• Accountable for identifying, assessing and escalating technical risks, defects, dependencies and design gaps that may affect payroll accuracy, regulatory compliance, project timelines or business operations.
• Coordinates and validates the technical execution and results of System Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing, payroll parallel runs, cutover rehearsals and production deployment.
• Provides technical readiness assessments and recommendations to support testing sign-off, cutover approval and Go/No-Go decisions. Final business and project approvals remain with the designated business owners and project governance bodies.
• Ensures that technical specifications, configuration records, interface documentation, testing evidence, issue logs, cutover procedures and operational handover documents are complete, accurate and properly maintained.
• The role does not hold direct budget authority or final business approval authority. However, the role is accountable for providing sound technical recommendations, escalating material risks promptly and ensuring the timely completion of assigned technical deliverables.
• The role has a direct impact on payroll accuracy, system reliability, data integrity, regulatory compliance and successful payroll operations across the countries and business units within the project scope.

Job Requirements

• At least five to eight years of hands-on SAP Payroll implementation and support experience.
• Strong functional and technical knowledge of SAP Payroll, including payroll configuration, payroll schemas, Personnel Calculation Rules (PCRs), wage types, payroll functions and payroll control records.
• Strong understanding of payroll processing, retroactive calculations, off-cycle payroll, statutory deductions, payroll reconciliation and posting to Finance.
• Experience with SAP ECC Payroll and migration or transition to SAP S/4HANA or SAP HCM for SAP S/4HANA.
• Demonstrated involvement in at least two full-cycle SAP Payroll implementations, migrations or major transformation programmes.
• Ability to review and challenge solution designs, configuration decisions, technical specifications and migration approaches proposed by implementation partners.
• Experience with SAP Payroll interfaces, data migration, payroll results, reconciliation reports and integration with third-party systems.
• Experience coordinating unit testing, System Integration Testing (SIT), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), parallel runs, cutover and post-go-live stabilisation.
• Ability to analyse payroll calculation errors, integration failures, data discrepancies and configuration-related issues.
• Working knowledge of Workday payroll integrations, such as PECI, PICOF or equivalent payroll interfaces, would be an advantage.
• Knowledge of ABAP debugging, payroll clusters, interface monitoring or technical troubleshooting would be an added advantage.
• Experience working with multi-country payroll implementations and country-specific statutory requirements is preferred.
• Strong stakeholder-management and vendor-management skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with technical teams, payroll users and senior stakeholders.
• Relevant SAP HCM or SAP Payroll certification would be an advantage.