Senior Business Systems Lead, Payroll & Time (Dayforce)

At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect. We aim to achieve this by cultivating a work environment where all team members belong and have the opportunity to thrive. 

Payroll and time systems are where People Technology's promises meet payday reality — if the configuration is wrong, employees feel it immediately and Lyft carries real compliance exposure. Lyft is consolidating payroll for recently acquired entities across 16 countries onto Ceridian Dayforce, and as a Business Systems Lead for Payroll & Time, reporting to Akshay Patki, Head of People Technology at Lyft, you'll be Lyft's internal owner of that migration. A systems integrator or Dayforce's own professional services team will execute the technical build; you'll drive the requirements, make the functional calls, and hold that delivery accountable to how Lyft actually needs to pay and schedule its people. This role sits inside People Technology, part of Corporate Engineering and IT (CEIT), and works in close partnership with Payroll Operations, HR, Legal, and Finance, alongside an integration developer and program management support, to bring each migration wave home cleanly and keep the resulting system accurate and compliant long after the implementation partner rolls off.

We're seeking someone who is genuinely fluent in payroll and time system configuration — not necessarily the person doing every keystroke, but someone who can sit across the table from a systems integrator and know immediately when a configuration decision is wrong before it reaches an employee's paycheck. You'll be the functional authority our team, our Payroll Operations partners, and our implementation partner turn to when a pay rule, time policy, or country-specific requirement needs a clear, defensible answer. In this role, you'll translate ambiguous policy, legal, and country input into requirements a vendor can execute against, validate their build wave by wave, own cutover and hypercare, and then take direct ownership of steady-state configuration once each country goes live.

If you are a candidate who takes pride in getting the details of payroll and time exactly right, who can hold a vendor accountable to a high bar without needing to do their job for them, and who wants ownership over systems that directly affect every employee's paycheck across a genuinely global footprint, then you may be the ideal person for this position. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds.

• Serve as Lyft's internal functional owner for the multi-country Dayforce payroll and time tracking migration, driving requirements gathering and directing the day-to-day delivery of the systems integrator or Dayforce professional services team executing the technical build
• Translate payroll policy, collective bargaining requirements, and country-specific statutory input from Payroll Operations and Legal into clear, unambiguous requirements the implementation partner can execute against
• Review and validate the implementation partner's configuration against Lyft's payroll policy and each country's requirements before sign-off, catching errors before they reach production
• Act as the primary escalation point when a requirement is ambiguous or a vendor's proposed configuration doesn't hold up, making the call and defending it to Payroll Ops, Legal, and the vendor alike
• Partner with program management to flag wave-level risks and dependencies specific to the payroll and time workstream

• Experience with a global or multi-country payroll migration, particularly through M&A integration, involving a systems integrator or vendor professional services team
• Familiarity with international in-country payroll providers or BPOs (e.g., TMF, IRIS, Paylocity) commonly used as interim or legacy platforms during consolidation
• Experience with Dayforce time tracking and/or scheduling modules specifically, beyond payroll configuration alone
• Familiarity with Workday HCM and how payroll systems integrate with a broader HRIS and ERP landscape
• Experience with payroll compliance requirements across Canada, Mexico, or European markets
• Exposure to automation or AI-enabled workflow tools (e.g., Workato) applied to payroll or time-tracking processes
• Prior experience in a high-growth tech company or during active M&A integration

• Coordinate with Payroll Operations and in-country stakeholders to scope requirements ahead of each planned migration wave, working within the program's phased, multi-country sequencing
• Own parallel testing and payroll validation cycles for each wave, confirming the vendor's build reflects Lyft's actual pay rules before go-live
• Own cutover and hypercare for each wave, serving as the first point of contact for post-go-live configuration issues until the system stabilizes
• Coordinate sequencing dependencies with adjacent Workday and Oracle ERP workstreams so payroll migration timing doesn't collide with parallel system changes

• Take direct ownership of Dayforce payroll and time tracking configuration for each country once its migration wave completes and the implementation partner rolls off
• Maintain configuration documentation and runbooks that make payroll system logic transparent and auditable, reducing dependency on any single person's or vendor's tribal knowledge
• Monitor system changes, vendor releases, and regulatory updates that affect payroll and time configuration, and proactively assess and implement required changes
• Partner with Payroll, Legal, and Compliance teams to ensure configuration adheres to wage and hour law, statutory pay requirements, and data privacy obligations across all markets served
• Identify opportunities to automate manual payroll and time-tracking workarounds, partnering with the team's automation and AI initiatives where relevant
• Support the expansion of scope into scheduling configuration as that capability comes online, and support internal and external payroll audits by providing configuration evidence and walking auditors through system logic

• 5+ years of experience in payroll and/or time tracking systems, with functional configuration depth in Ceridian Dayforce sufficient to direct and validate a systems integrator's or vendor's delivery, not just execute configuration personally
• Experience serving as the client-side or internal owner of a vendor-delivered implementation — reviewing a partner's configuration output, making functional decisions, and holding delivery accountable to requirements
• Solid understanding of core payroll concepts: earnings and deductions, tax setup, accruals, overtime rules, and multi-country or multi-state payroll complexity
• Experience translating policy, legal, or collective bargaining requirements into precise, unambiguous requirements that a vendor or engineering partner can build against
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot payroll and time discrepancies down to root cause, working cross-functionally with Payroll Operations and HR
• Comfort operating as the sole internal Dayforce functional authority across a multi-country, multi-phase program, coordinating with Payroll Operations and country stakeholders without needing to personally build every element
• Clear communication skills, able to explain system logic to Payroll and HR partners and hold a firm, well-reasoned position with an implementation vendor