Senior Payroll Specialist

Location: To create the best experience for this employee and meet business needs, this role requires you to be based in Germany and have the right to work in this location.

Role Summary

This is an exciting time to join Oyster. Germany is one of our most important markets and this role will give you real ownership over how payroll runs, with the scope to help us achieve best-in-class payroll standards at scale.

You'll be our lead in-house payroll expert: the person we trust to own German payroll end-to-end, build scalable workflows in DATEV, and set the standard for how payroll should run. If you've run in-house German payroll from the ground up, know DATEV inside out, have strong opinions on doing payroll right, and have helped build or transform a payroll function before, this role is built for you.

Core Responsibilities

• Run payroll end-to-end: Own the full (in-house) German payroll cycle in-house; accurate, compliant, and on time.
• Master data ownership: Oversee the validation of employee payroll master data; new hires, terminations, salary changes, variable pay, benefits, absences, and garnishments (Pfändungen), ensuring every change is processed accurately and within payroll deadlines.
• Payroll controls & quality: Run rigorous pre- and post-payroll validations each cycle, investigate discrepancies, and implement corrective actions to keep payroll accurate before issues reach team members, customers or Finance.
• Handle all statutory filings & accesses: Lohnsteueranmeldung, SV-Meldungen, Jahresmeldung, filing of U1/U2 reimbursement claims, owning the retrieval and maintenance of ELStAM data: you own and oversee these activities. You will also be responsible for setting up and managing required government accesses.
• Own the payroll system: Configure and maintain the in-house payroll system, test legislative updates before they go live, troubleshoot issues, and partner with our Product team to improve automation and scalability.
• Be the Subject Matter Expert: Advise the business on Lohnsteuerrecht, Sozialversicherungsrecht, Arbeitsrecht, and Tarifvertrag interpretation.
• Own the numbers : Oversee payroll journals, General ledger (GL) mappings, reconciliations with Finance, and full data integrity.
• Own complex escalations: Be the key point of contact for our most complex client payroll issues. Pair your deep technical expertise with a customer-first mindset to turn hard problems into a best-in-class experience.
• Reporting: Maintain and prepare statutory and ad-hoc reports to meet regulatory requirements, including EU Pay Transparency Directive obligations, Betriebsrat-facing pay assessment documentation, and Datenschutz/GDPR compliance across payroll data.
• Audits: Provide structured data and documentation to support internal and external audits.
• Level up the team: Improve processes, coach junior specialists through complex problems rather than solving issues for them, and back up Regional Managers when needed. Maintain a living knowledge base e.g. playbooks and SOPs. so legal updates and process knowledge stay documented and shared, never siloed.

Minimum Requirements

• 5+ years running the complete (in-house) payroll process for Germany, comfortable independently handling a high volume of payslips per month.
• German at C1/C2 for interaction with local authorities and fluent English for collaborating with our async global team.
• Advanced, hands-on DATEV experience is non-negotiable.
• Deep, current working knowledge of German wage tax, social insurance, and labor law, and the confidence to advise stakeholders directly, not just execute.
• Comfortable owning complex, sensitive client escalations; balancing technical precision with a genuine customer-first mindset.
• An analytical, productivity-obsessed mindset. You're not a corporate "just follow the process" type; you thrive working from a blank canvas to build and set up processes, with an automation mindset that keeps improving how the work gets done.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and driving cross-functional change, even without an established playbook.
• Some experience coaching or mentoring less experienced colleagues; you like building others up, not just solving problems yourself.
• Comfortable working largely asynchronously in a fast-paced, remote-first environment.

Desirable Skills

• Completed Kaufmännische Ausbildung (e.g. Steuerfachangestellte/r) and/or Lohnbuchhalter qualification.
• A broader accounting background or qualification (e.g. Bilanzbuchhalter); particularly useful for the GL mapping and reconciliation side of the role.
• Proven experience working on and delivering cross-functional HR/Payroll projects.
• Hands-on capability working with AI tools to optimize payroll or operations workflows.
• Strong data transformation skills and practical experience with data analytics platforms.