Senior Payroll Specialist

The role

The Senior Payroll Specialist owns end-to-end Dutch payroll, operated in Nmbrs, and acts as the designated backup for the company’s other international payrolls. This role harmonizes, simplifies, and continuously improves payroll execution and payroll accounting across the company’s Dutch entities, pay groups, providers, and systems. This is to make sure payroll remains accurate, compliant, trusted, and understandable as the company grows without a proportional increase in manual work or risk. As international backup, the role maintains working proficiency in the company’s other country payrolls and provides continuity during peak periods, absences, and year-end.

Your responsibilities will include: 

• Own end-to-end Dutch payroll execution in Nmbrs across entities and pay groups: monthly and off-cycle runs, holiday allowance, year-end close and annual statements (jaaropgaven), and the payroll calendar; define consistent execution standards that meet Dutch statutory and contractual requirements.
• Ensure Dutch payroll tax and social security compliance: wage tax and national insurance contributions (loonheffingen), employee insurance and Zvw premiums, the work-related costs scheme (WKR), timely and accurate loonaangifte to the Belastingdienst, corrections, and resolution of Belastingdienst and UWV correspondence.
• Administer regulated and complex pay items accurately: the 30% ruling and other expatriate and cross-border arrangements, equity income (RSU/option) taxation, pension contributions and provider files, sick leave and statutory leave schemes, transition payments and termination settlements, wage garnishments (loonbeslag), and taxable benefits-in-kind.
• Run and reconcile shadow payrolls in Nmbrs for internationally mobile employees (inbound assignees, cross-border and remote workers, and outbound Dutch employees with a host-country shadow payroll)
• Serve as the designated backup for the company’s other international payrolls: maintain working knowledge of country calendars, providers, and controls, and run or support pay cycles during absences, peak periods, and year-end in coordination with the payroll owners.
• Lead root-cause analysis for recurring payroll, accounting, or service failures; design and implement durable fixes.
• Drive process harmonization and simplification to reduce manual steps, handoffs, rework, and off-cycle runs; make full use of Nmbrs functionality, integrations, and reporting.
• Lead payroll execution during transitions (new entity launches, provider or system changes, restructures/M&A), ensuring continuity and control.
• Ensure payroll accounting remains clean as scope changes: consistent journals, accruals, reversals, and reconciliation standards.
• Monitor preventative controls by design, including SOX-aligned payroll controls; improve evidence pack quality and audit readiness.
• Act as escalation owner for complex or sensitive pay issues; provide authoritative explanations to employees and senior stakeholders.
• Partner with HR Ops, Finance, Legal/Compliance, Nmbrs, and international payroll providers to deliver scalable operating models and service quality.

We expect you to have: 

• At least 7+ years of Dutch payroll experience, including multi-entity scope in complex environments (growth, change, or hybrid in-house/outsourced models).
• Hands-on Nmbrs experience: running payroll end to end, configuring wage components and journal mappings, managing loonaangifte and corrections, and using its reporting and integrations (HRIS, GL, pension and benefits providers).
• Deep working knowledge of Dutch payroll compliance: loonheffingen and social security, WKR, the 30% ruling, expatriate taxation and shadow payroll, pension administration, sick leave and statutory leave, termination settlements, and year-end reporting.
• Working knowledge of international payroll (running or overseeing outsourced country payrolls) and readiness to act as the designated backup for the company’s other payrolls.
• Strong payroll controllership skills: ability to design controls, enforce SoD/approvals, and ensure audit-ready evidence.
• Proven capability improving payroll processes (standardization, automation enablement, reducing manual effort and errors) and leading transitions (vendor/system/new entity) with structured planning and issue resolution.
• Strong payroll accounting knowledge and experience working with Finance during close and audits.
• Excellent stakeholder management; comfortable acting as an escalation owner and payroll authority.
• Fluent English and professional working proficiency in Dutch (statutory correspondence, legislation, and provider documentation are in Dutch).

It will be an added bonus if you have: 

• Dutch payroll qualification (PDL and/or VPS) and/or Nmbrs certification.
• Experience with international payroll providers or aggregators and multi-country operating models (SLAs, KPIs, remediation).
• Experience operating payroll controls in a SOX-compliant, US-listed company environment.
• Experience with equity compensation payroll (RSUs/options), including cross-border cases and trailing tax liabilities.
• Experience supporting Global Mobility programs: shadow payroll set-up, tax equalization/protection and hypothetical tax, gross-ups, and year-end assignee reconciliations with tax advisors.
• Experience turning statutory/operational requirements into system/workflow requirements (e.g., Nmbrs–HRIS–GL integrations).
• Project management certification or comparable experience leading cross-functional initiatives.

Competencies & Behavioral Traits:

• Systems thinking: redesigns the process so it scales, rather than adding checks and manual work.
• Bias for prevention: anticipates issues and builds guardrails.
• Influence without authority; can align multiple stakeholders around standards.
• Comfort with ambiguity and change; makes decisions with incomplete information.
• Reliability and ownership: a dependable backup who keeps continuity across payrolls when it matters most.
• Strong coaching mindset; elevates capability across the payroll team.