Product Manager - US Payroll

Role: Product Manager - US Payroll

Location: United States, Remote

Darwinbox is the fastest-growing HR technology platform, designing the future of work by building the world's best HR tech, driven by a fierce focus on employee experience and customer success, and continuous, iterative innovation. We are the preferred choice of 1,400+ global enterprises to manage their 4.5 million+ employees across 130+ countries.

Darwinbox's new-age HCM suite competes with local as well as global players in the enterprise technology space (such as SAP, Oracle, and Workday). The firm has acquired notable customers ranging from large conglomerates to unicorn start-ups: DP World, Masafi, DIFC, Abu Dhabi Department of Finance, Nivea, Starbucks, Swiggy, DLF, Crisil, CRED, Vedanta, Mahindra, Glenmark, Gokongwei Group, Mitra Adiperkasa, EFS Facilities Management, VNG Corporation, and many more.

Our vision of building a world-class product company from Asia is backed by marquee global investors like Microsoft, Salesforce, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

About the Role

You will own what Darwinbox's payroll engine does for US employers: how pay is calculated, taxed, paid, and reported across federal, state, and local jurisdictions, for hourly and salaried workforces alike. This is a product role with implementation-grade domain depth. You decide what gets built, write the requirements engineering builds from, and stand behind the result in front of customers. When a client asks whether Darwinbox can meet a requirement, you answer; when the answer is no, you own the roadmap.

Roughly 80% of your scope is payroll. The remaining 20% is the time-to-pay boundary: how timesheets, overtime, multiple rates, and shift premiums arrive in gross pay, owned jointly with the Product Manager for US Time & Workforce Management.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the US payroll roadmap: Translate US payroll strategy into a prioritized roadmap, detailed requirements, and prototypes. Weigh customer impact, regulatory need, and the long-term cost of maintaining a capability across hundreds of clients.

• Be the authority on US statutory requirements: Federal, state, and local withholding; multi-state employment and reciprocity; local jurisdiction taxes; hourly versus salaried treatment and overtime; garnishments, deductions, and benefits taxation; annual state reports and year-end (W-2, 1099); and industry-specific needs. Track regulatory change and turn it into product ahead of effective dates.

• Decide what earns a place in the product: Assess client requirements against current capability. Say clearly what Darwinbox supports today, what configuration can meet, and what must be built, and convert the last into roadmap commitments engineering can hold.

• Stay hands-on: Build and configure US payroll on a fresh tenant end to end, and support implementations and go-lives. Use what you find to improve the product before customers find it.

• Run client conversations independently: Lead requirement discussions, solution reviews, and escalations with US customers and prospects, and earn the trust of US Sales, Pre-Sales, and Customer Success leadership.

• Own the time-to-pay boundary: Define how time data enters payroll: FLSA overtime and regular-rate inputs, multiple jobs and rates, shift differentials, and retro adjustments, jointly with the US Time & Workforce Management Product Manager.

• Ship, measure, and enable: Work with engineering through build, QA, and release; track adoption after launch; use AI tools daily to research, write requirements, and prototype; and act as subject matter expert for Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success.

Qualifications

• US payroll depth: Deep, hands-on experience with US payroll in an enterprise HCM or payroll product environment. You can explain the rules, the edge cases, and where systems break: multi-state taxation, reciprocity, local jurisdictions, overtime, garnishments, and year-end.

• Product experience: Experience owning product decisions in enterprise SaaS: prioritization, requirements, roadmap, and shipping with engineering, including things you chose not to build and why. Product ownership earned through payroll solution architecture or implementation leadership at a payroll or HCM vendor also qualifies.

• Hands-on configuration and go-live: Demonstrated ability to set up US payroll on a fresh tenant and take it through to go-live, with direct involvement in US payroll implementations.

• Client-facing: Track record of running customer and prospect conversations independently, including pushing back when a requirement should not be built.

• Time & attendance fluency: Working knowledge of US time and attendance: FLSA overtime, multiple rates, shift differentials, and how time flows into pay.

• AI fluency: Hands-on use of AI tools in your product work, with a concrete method for verifying their output.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package including medical insurance plan, 401(k), and paid time off.

• Flexible work arrangements (remote within the U.S.).

• Professional growth and international career opportunities within a fast-scaling global organization.

Work Authorization

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Darwinbox is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status.