The Finance Department Finance leads Bridgewater's financial strategy and serves as a strategic advisor to businesses across the firm. We partner with leaders to translate strategy into financially sound plans, evaluate growth opportunities, and make informed decisions about how to allocate capital. Our work builds financial resilience and drives long-term shareholder value, supported by rigorous analysis, reporting, and controls. We are also transforming how Finance operates, using AI and automation to deliver faster insights and focus more of our expertise on the decisions that shape the firm's future.
About the Role We are seeking a high-agency operator to serve as the right hand to our Director, Payroll and help reshape how payroll runs at one of the world's premier asset management firms. The role has two aims: provide real leverage to payroll leadership and reduce key-person risk, and partner with the Director to redesign the payroll operating model through better process, technology, and controls. Strong operational, analytical, and cross-functional skills matter most - payroll or payroll-tax depth is a plus, and we will invest in building it for the right person. Because the team is a daily resource for employees' pay questions, a service mindset and clear communication matter as much as technical rigor.
Key Responsibilities Payroll Operations
- Run and review end-to-end bi-weekly payroll, including data validation, reconciliation, and balancing
- Analyze payroll reports to identify discrepancies, trends, and improvement opportunities
- Work with internal teams and outsourced partners to resolve payroll and withholding issues
- Review complex transactions such as off-cycle payments, supplemental wages, and executive compensation items
- Support administration of complex compensation programs (deferred comp, bonuses, equity, fringe benefits, imputed income), coordinating with Finance, HR, Tax, and vendors
Employee Support & Pay Communications
- Be a responsive, service-minded resource for employee questions about pay, withholding, and multi-state wage allocation.
- Help build and roll out employee-facing pay communications, including standardized pay statements that supplement the W-2 and explain how different types of pay are allocated and taxed.
- Turn recurring questions into clearer documentation, FAQs, and self-service tools that reduce inquiry volume over time.
Payroll Tax & Compliance
- Serve as a key resource for federal, state, and local payroll tax compliance, including interactions with tax agencies (notices, amendments, registrations, and filings)
- Maintain expertise in multi-state payroll tax regulations, with demonstrated knowledge of New York and Connecticut withholding, reciprocity, and wage sourcing rules
- Ensure accurate withholding, reporting, and remittance of payroll taxes across jurisdictions, including year-end activities such as W-2 review and quarter/year-end balancing
- Contribute to the development, documentation, and maintenance of payroll tax procedures and controls
- Manage state tax wage allocation for multi-jurisdictional employees, analyzing work location and residency scenarios to ensure compliant withholding and reporting
Process Improvement, Technology & Transformation
- Partner with the Director to design the future-state payroll operating model, including building an enhanced in-house capability
- Actively drive process reengineering - mapping workflows, removing manual steps, and redesigning around scalable technology
- Help shape and execute the payroll technology roadmap with the Technology team, including automation and reporting
- Build documentation and controls that reduce key-person dependency and support a leaner operating model
- Support system enhancements, internal audits, and compliance reviews
Cross-Functional Partnership & Continuity
- Act as a fully cross-trained partner to the Director, Payroll, stepping in to keep payroll running without interruption
- Collaborate across Tax, Technology, HR, Treasury, Accounting and the business to operationalize new compensation programs, surface risks and drive shared improvements
- Serve as an escalation point for complex payroll and withholding matters, coordinating stakeholders to resolution
Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, HR, Business, or a related field
- 5+ years in operations, HR, finance operations, or a related function, with a track record of running processes well
- Demonstrated experience improving processes, and ideally leading change or transformation efforts
- Strong analytical skills and advanced Excel, comfortable working with large data sets and complex scenarios
- Strong communication and the ability to collaborate and build trust across teams and partners
- A service mindset and the ability to explain complex pay and tax topics clearly to non-specialists.
- High ownership, integrity, discretion, and attention to detail
Physical Requirements The anticipated onsite requirement for this role is 4 days per week at our Westport, CT office.
Compensation The wage range for this role is $165,000 - $250,000 inclusive of base salary and discretionary target bonus. The expected base salary for this role is between 80% - 90% of this wage range.
