Job Description

What will you be doing in this role?

The Associate Director, Application Development - Payroll & UKG provides technology and product delivery leadership for enterprise Payroll and Workforce Management, with primary accountability for Oracle Fusion Cloud Payroll and UKG platforms. Working in partnership with Payroll, HR, Finance, and operational leaders, this role helps lead a product-oriented operating model in which multidisciplinary teams are organized around workforce capabilities, experiences, and measurable business outcomes rather than individual applications or projects. The Associate Director is accountable for technology strategy, platform stewardship, delivery execution, availability and capability of the technical resources needed to design, configure, integrate, test, deploy, and support the technology, operational reliability, and continuous improvement across Payroll and Workforce Management. Given the business-critical nature of these capabilities, this leader maintains rigorous operational governance while enabling persistent product teams to continuously improve business outcomes.

Product & Platform Strategy

• Partner with Payroll, HR, Finance, and operational leaders to define product strategies, roadmaps, priorities, and measurable outcomes for Payroll and Workforce Management.
• Translate business strategy, workforce needs, regulatory requirements, and user needs into sustainable technology capabilities.
• Establish persistent product roadmaps and backlogs that balance strategic transformation, optimization, regulatory requirements, technical health, and operational stability.
• Serve as the technology steward for Oracle Fusion Payroll and UKG, maximizing capabilities available through strategic platforms before introducing additional technologies or custom solutions.
• Evaluate Oracle- and UKG-delivered capabilities, roadmaps, configuration, extensibility, AI, automation, analytics, and agent-based capabilities before identifying residual capability gaps requiring other solutions.
• Ensure product and platform decisions align with enterprise architecture, ERP, Data & AI, cybersecurity, integration, and technology strategies.

Integrated Product Leadership

• Co-lead multidisciplinary Payroll and Workforce Management product teams with business/product leadership, bringing together functional, technical, integration, data, architecture, cybersecurity, change, and operational expertise.
• Establish clear accountability across product management, technology delivery, platform ownership, business process ownership, and operational support.
• Enable persistent teams to move from problem identification through discovery, design, delivery, adoption, measurement, and continuous optimization.
• Manage technology capacity across product teams based on enterprise priorities, roadmaps, dependencies, operational risk, and business value.
• Establish product governance and delivery practices that enable timely decision-making while maintaining appropriate controls for payroll and workforce-management processes.

Product Delivery & Operational Excellence

• Lead continuous delivery across new capabilities, platform releases, integrations, optimization, technical debt, regulatory changes, and production support.
• Maintain rigorous controls for testing, release readiness, change management, issue resolution, production support, and business continuity.
• Ensure end-to-end coordination across Oracle HCM, Payroll, UKG, Finance, identity/access, integrations, reporting, and enterprise data platforms.
• Maintain accountability for platform reliability, service performance, security, technical health, delivery quality, and financial stewardship.
• Establish product and operational measures including reliability, adoption, user experience, cycle time, business outcomes, and platform value.
• Lead resolution of critical application and integration issues across business teams, internal technology teams, Oracle, UKG, and strategic partners.

Business Partnership & Experience

• Serve as a strategic technology partner to Payroll, HR, Finance, and operational leadership.
• Partner with business/product leaders to prioritize opportunities based on business value, workforce experience, regulatory requirements, operational risk, feasibility, and enterprise strategy.
• Maintain an end-to-end perspective across payroll and workforce-management processes rather than optimizing individual applications in isolation.
• Promote process simplification and standardization before introducing customization.
• Communicate product strategy, roadmap, outcomes, investments, operational performance, risks, and decisions to senior leadership.
• Maintain strategic relationships with Oracle, UKG, implementation partners, and other technology vendors.

Team & Capability Leadership

• Build and lead the technology capabilities required to support persistent, multidisciplinary Payroll and Workforce Management product support team.
• Coach and develop team members in Oracle Payroll, UKG, product management, integration, testing, automation, data, production support, and product delivery.
• Evolve roles and ways of working from project/application-centric delivery toward durable product teams with clear outcome accountability.
• Establish team goals and performance measures aligned with product outcomes, platform health, operational reliability, and continuous improvement.
• Determine the appropriate mix of internal staff, strategic partners, consultants, and vendor resources based on product demand and required capabilities.
• Develop succession plans and strengthen critical technical and functional capabilities across the team.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Advance responsible adoption of AI, automation, analytics, workflow, and agent-based capabilities across Payroll and Workforce Management.
• Apply a platform-first approach: determine what is already licensed, configurable, available through Oracle or UKG roadmaps, or extensible within strategic platforms before introducing new technology.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual processes, strengthen controls, improve issue detection, and reduce operational complexity.
• Partner with Data & AI teams to enable trusted workforce and payroll data for enterprise analytics, intelligent decision support, and responsible AI use.
• Continuously identify opportunities to simplify the technology landscape, reduce customization and technical debt, improve user experience, and increase value realized from strategic platforms

*Approved Remote States: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Texas*

Qualifications

Experience Requirements:

Eight (8) plus years experience with application development in a complex multi-platform environment, preferably supporting Oracle HCM and HR Products.

Four (4) plus years of direct work experience in management capacity, including vendor packaged systems implementations.

Experience in managing teams in complex enterprise-level implementation and support of vendor-supplied software

Experience and expertise in a wide variety of software development, client/server, relational database, systems integration, and networking technologies.

Educational/Certification Requirements:

Bachelor's degree in Business Management, Healthcare or relate Computer Science field.

Oracle Fusion Cloud Payroll Certification and/or UKG Pro Workforce Management Certification preferred.

PMP and/or ScrumMaster (CSM preferred).

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