Senior Payroll Specialist

3 billion people across the world work in frontline jobs. Yet, despite rising costs and staff shortages, frontline organisations are still left to choose between paper, Excel, and WhatsApp, or decade-old workforce management solutions to take care of the most important part of their businesses - their people. Enter Sona: the next generation of AI-native, frontline workforce management. We’ve built an end-to-end platform covering Scheduling, HR, Payroll, and Communications that gives the largest frontline organisations everything they need to staff more intelligently and empower their teams. In under 5 years, we've already made a deep impact on the lives of over 100k frontline workers and the operation of their organisations, grown the team to 160+, and secured over $100M in funding from notable VC's, including our Series B led by N47 alongside Felicis, Northzone, and Gradient Ventures (Google). It’s a hugely exciting time to be joining the team as we’re still small enough that you’ll have a significant impact on the company’s growth trajectory and culture, yet large enough to have a great structure, experienced leaders and world-class benefits in place. About the Role We're growing our payroll bureau fast, and hiring Senior Payroll Specialists to own payroll processing and the customer relationship end-to-end for a portfolio of Sona's frontline customers. This isn't a conventional bureau role. We're a fast-moving startup where everyone has a hand in building our processes, tools, and ways of working, and we're already more AI-forward in how we run payroll than any other bureau we know. You'll help push that further, not just keep up with it. If you want a highly structured environment with the playbook already written, this likely isn't the fit. If you're energised by building, and by figuring out where AI genuinely helps rather than just following a process, you'll have real ownership and real opportunity as the bureau scales. Responsibilities - Run end-to-end payrolls for a growing portfolio of enterprise customers with complex requirements, spanning hourly rates, overtime, and weekly, fortnightly or monthly cycles - Own your client relationships as their primary point of contact, giving them confidence in our service - Identify opportunities to improve how we work, including where AI can help, and help put those improvements into practice - Act as a payroll expert in support of sales, helping prospective customers understand how our bureau operates - Collaborate across Sona, from Implementation and Product to Customer Success and Support - Develop a strong working knowledge of our HR and WFM platform and how it connects to payroll - Monitor KPIs, SLAs and compliance to ensure we deliver the highest standard of service - Stay current on the legislation, tools and trends that shape how we run payroll Requirements - Hands-on bureau payroll experience, processing for multiple clients rather than running a single in-house payroll - Strong working knowledge of UK payroll legislation: PAYE, RTI, pension auto-enrolment, and statutory payments - Comfortable managing multiple concurrent payrolls at volume and across different pay cycles - Assured and expert with clients, operating as a trusted advisor on payroll matters - Genuinely curious and self-sufficient: you research, question inefficiencies, and bring ideas rather than needing a playbook handed to you - Genuinely motivated by a startup environment where you help build the processes, not just follow them - Bonus: CIPP qualified (or working towards it), high-volume or multi-sector bureau experience, and any experience building or improving payroll tools and processes, including with AI. A little Ireland payroll exposure is a nice-to-have, not a requirement. Benefits - Salary: £45,000 - £55,000 - Hybrid working - 2+ days/week in our London office (Soho) - Share options - 35 days annual leave (25 days standard plus 10 flexible public holiday days) - Extra day of leave for every y…