[Hiring] Senior Payroll & Compliance Specialist @Babylist

Role Description

As our Senior Payroll & Compliance Specialist, you'll own the most tangible ways we look after our team: paying people correctly and staying compliant in a fast-changing regulatory environment. You'll do that for a distributed workforce of 600–1,000 employees across ~35 states, 300+ of them nonexempt/hourly. You'll report to our People Operations Manager and work most closely with People Ops, Accounting, and our payroll partner, Newfront — owning our U.S. compliance calendar end to end (45+ recurring obligations a year across about a dozen jurisdictions), with real room to redesign the steps that slow us down.

• If you've supported complex, multi-state payroll for a large nonexempt workforce, take pride in getting it right, and like being the steady hand behind the scenes, this role will energize you.

Qualifications

• You run multi-state U.S. payroll end to end in an enterprise HRIS (Paylocity or comparable) — inputs, timecard corrections, off-cycle and termination pay, garnishments, and final review before funding.
• You've owned a compliance calendar covering EEO-1, OSHA, nondiscrimination testing, and state reporting — plus background checks, I-9 review, required trainings, and policy creation and revision.
• Direct experience with California or New York employment law is a strong plus.
• You turn legal redlines into usable policy.
• You improve a process, then prove it.
• You can explain a paycheck to the person who earned it, and the numbers to the people who sign off on them.
• You hold a deadline.
• You have 5–8 years in payroll and compliance, including 3+ years running multi-state U.S. payroll.
• CPP, FPC, SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR aren't required, but any would cement your expertise.

Requirements

• You'll run two payroll cycles end to end — weekly for our fulfillment center and hourly showroom teams, bi-weekly for corporate and salaried showroom.
• You'll audit every pre-process register before funding and work discrepancies with Newfront until they're resolved.
• You'll be the person employees reach when a paycheck doesn't make sense — questions answered or routed within one business day.
• You'll own the U.S. compliance calendar through annual filings — EEO-1, CA Pay Data, and OSHA 300 across corporate, both showrooms, and the fulfillment center.
• You'll run screenings that hold up under review: background check review and escalation, plus quarterly health exclusion checks.
• You'll take point on the annual "Compliance Refresh" each February, chasing it to 100% completion across every eligible employee and contractor.
• You'll design the internal controls across payroll and compliance and keep the evidence trail current.
• You'll build automation and prove it works — skills, scheduled tasks, and workflow tooling, tested against known-good output.

Benefits

• Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Retirement savings plan with company matching and flexible spending accounts.
• Generous paid parental leave and PTO.
• Winter Wonder Week: the whole company takes a paid week off at the end of the year.
• Remote work stipend to set up your office.
• Perks for physical, mental, and emotional health, parenting, childcare, and financial planning.