Payroll Program Manager

arketa; New York (NY); On-site; USD 66,000 - 92,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Ownership and Advancement

Stock Options

Unlimited PTO

Medical, dental and vision insurance

Fitness Class Reimbursement

Parental Leave Policy

Job summary

Arketa is seeking an Embedded Payroll Program Manager to own strategy, process design, and success metrics for our new embedded payroll offering. You’ll be a senior point of contact for partners, shaping onboarding and support playbooks and collaborating with payroll infrastructure partners.

You will design documentation, define handoffs between onboarding and ongoing support, and manage a small team while coordinating with engineering, compliance, and customer success to keep implementations on

Qualifications

• 3-5+ years in program/project management, implementation, or customer-facing operations leadership
• Experience designing processes and playbooks for a customer-facing function, ideally from scratch
• People management experience, or strong readiness to manage a small team
• Strong communication skills to explain payroll mechanics to non-experts

Responsibilities

• Design onboarding playbooks, support triage, and escalation paths with cross-functional partners
• Define handoff criteria between onboarding and ongoing support; refine as volume grows
• Own documentation and Help Center foundations for onboarding and support workflows
• Manage relationships with payroll partner and coordinate with engineering, compliance, and customer success to keep implementations on track

Skills

Program management

Implementation leadership

Customer-facing operations

People management

Payroll/fintech knowledge

Job description

About Arketa

Arketa is building the operating system for modern fitness and wellness. Our mission is to make wellness more accessible by empowering studios and wellness entrepreneurs to grow beyond in-person classes. We provide a powerful, all‑in‑one platform to manage and scale hybrid wellness businesses, whether online, in‑person, or both.

With Arketa, studios can manage schedules, accept bookings and payments, build on‑demand video libraries, host retreats, run automated marketing, and launch fully branded apps and websites. We make it simple for founders to deliver a seamless, professional experience across every customer touchpoint. We've raised $15M in Series A funding and are growing quickly. It's a unique moment to join us. We're building a category‑defining company in a fast‑moving space, and we're looking for a leader who is excited to help shape what world‑class partner support looks like in the wellness category.

About the Role
We're looking for an Embedded Payroll Program Manager to own the strategy, process design, and success metrics behind Arketa's new embedded payroll offering — and to be a direct point of support for our partners. Day‑to‑day onboarding and support execution belongs to the Implementation Account Manager and Payroll Specialist, but you'll stay personally connected to partners, especially on the more complex or highest‑touch relationships, while designing the playbooks the rest of the team executes against, owning the relationship with our payroll infrastructure partner and managing the two roles below.

What You’ll Do:

Program Strategy & Process Design

• Design the onboarding playbook, support triage process, and escalation paths, in partnership with the Implementation Account Manager and Payroll Specialist

• Define the handoff criteria between onboarding and ongoing support, and refine it as volume and the team grow

• Build the documentation and Help Center foundations the rest of the team executes against

• Own the roadmap and priorities for the payroll offering's customer‑facing operations

Metrics & Reporting

• Define and track key metrics: time‑to‑launch, onboarding capacity, support resolution time, support volume per customer, CSAT, and documentation coverage

• Own the reporting cadence to leadership on how the payroll offering is performing operationally

Partner Support

• Serve as a senior point of contact for Arketa's payroll partners, especially on complex, escalated, or strategic relationships

• Step in directly on partner issues that need program‑level context or cross‑functional pull

• Build direct partner relationships that inform how onboarding and support processes should evolve

Team & Stakeholder Management

• Manage and coach the Implementation Account Manager and Payroll Specialist, and unblock escalations they can't resolve on their own

• Manage the relationship with our payroll provider, and coordinate with engineering, compliance, and customer success to keep implementations and support on track

• Translate recurring customer pain points into feedback for Product and Engineering

What success looks like:

• New customers launch on time with minimal friction, and support questions get resolved quickly and accurately

• Clear documentation exists for both onboarding and support workflows

• Partners feel a direct, senior point of contact is available for their more complex or high‑stakes needs

• The Implementation Account Manager and Payroll Specialist have what they need to execute independently day to day, with you focused on strategy, metrics, partner relationships, and escalations

• A well‑reasoned, evolving plan for how the onboarding/support handoff should work as volume grows

What we're looking for:

• 3-5+ years in program/project management, implementation, or customer‑facing operations leadership, ideally at a fintech, HR tech, or payroll company

• Experience designing processes and playbooks for a customer‑facing function, ideally from scratch

• People management experience, or strong readiness to manage a small team, preferred

• Strong communication skills — you'll be explaining payroll mechanics to non‑experts and translating customer pain points to internal teams

• Ability to operate with ambiguity; this role and its scope will evolve

• Experience with payroll, benefits, or embedded financial products is a strong plus

What We Offer:

• Ownership and Opportunity for Advancement

• Competitive Salary and Stock Options

• Unlimited PTO: our policy is designed to give you the flexibility to rest, recharge, and take care of personal needs — while staying aligned with your team and responsibilities.

• Medical, dental and vision health insurance

• Fitness Class Reimbursement: we’re committed to supporting both employee wellness and our industry relationships. As an Arketa employee we see movement as opportunity.

• Parental Leave Policy

For this role, the estimated hourly rate is $48.08 to $67.31, depending on experience and qualifications. This position is non‑exempt and eligible for overtime pay. In addition to base pay, we offer equity. We believe in compensating fairly and transparently, and we're happy to share more detail during the interview process.