Payroll Transformation Director: AI‑Driven Workday Lead

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); Headquarters (ID); Hybrid; USD 185,378 - 301,239; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid schedule

Excellent health benefits

Job summary

HHMI seeks a transformative payroll leader to redesign the end-to-end payroll function. You will own the process from input to pay, ensure compliance across multi-state tax and foreign nationals, and drive Workday configuration and AI-enabled improvements.

You will partner with Finance, People & Culture, and Science to align pay operations with organizational strategy, while building a capable, automated payroll team for long-term resilience.

Qualifications

• Deep payroll expertise across multi-state tax, wage and hour, and retirement and benefits deductions.
• Experience redesigning payroll processes around modern systems (Workday) and AI.
• Ability to build cross-functional partnerships between Finance, People & Culture, and Science.

Responsibilities

• Redesign payroll end-to-end, ensuring compliance and controls.
• Lead Workday configuration, automation, and reporting to remove manual workarounds.
• Implement AI-driven checks to improve accuracy and reduce errors.
• Define and communicate payroll strategy to executive leadership.
• Lead and develop the payroll team for higher levels of automation.

Skills

Payroll expertise

Workday knowledge

AI fluency

Strategic thinking

Stakeholder partnership

Tools

Workday

Job description

HHMI seeks a transformative payroll leader to redesign the end-to-end payroll function. You will own the process from input to pay, ensure compliance across multi-state tax and foreign nationals, and drive Workday configuration and AI-enabled improvements.

You will partner with Finance, People & Culture, and Science to align pay operations with organizational strategy, while building a capable, automated payroll team for long-term resilience.