Senior Payroll Specialist (APAC)

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for an experienced and detail-oriented Senior Payroll Specialist (APAC) to join our team in Sydney. In this role, you will take full ownership of our APAC payroll operations, primarily focusing on our growing Australian footprint (~300 employees) alongside smaller regional entities across Asia.

This is a high-visibility, technical role. You will initially run Australian payroll using Employment Hero while collaborating with third-party accounting partners across the region. Concurrently, you will play a central role in our migration to Workday, transitioning our Australian payroll fully in-house for a targeted July go-live. Once live, you will own the end-to-end processing directly in Workday.

This position demands strong technical knowledge of Australian taxation, equity reporting (pre/post-IPO), salary packaging, shadow payroll, and termination compliance.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. End-to-End Payroll Operations & System Migration

• Support the transition of Australian payroll from Employment Hero to Workday (target go-live: July), assisting with data validation, UAT, and parallel payroll runs.
• Once implemented, take full ownership of processing end-to-end payroll directly within Workday.
• Oversee and coordinate smaller regional payrolls across Asia, working closely with local third-party providers.
• Act as the primary point of contact for all employee payroll enquiries, delivering exceptional employee support.

1. Specialised Calculations, Compensation & Benefits

• Incentive Compensation: Verify bonus payments and calculate appropriate foreign currency conversions for payroll integration.
• Terminations: Calculate and process all termination payments (voluntary, involuntary, redundancies, PILON, annual leave accruals), ensuring accurate tax treatments, tax-free thresholds, and Employment Termination Payment (ETP) codes are strictly applied.
• Benefits & Expense Reimbursements: Review and administer vendor-based employee expense reimbursements, executing accurate gross-up calculations for benefits, where applicable.
• Salary Packaging: Manage the end-to-end setup, ongoing deductions, and termination adjustments for novated leases.
• Superannuation: Manage employee super choice elections, including setting up and validating new superannuation funds directly in Workday.

1. Global Mobility & Shadow Payroll

• Partner with our Global Mobility team and external tax partners to process complex shadow payroll calculations for inbound and outbound cross-border remote/mobile employees.
• Ensure correct withholding and reporting of PAYG and state payroll tax for international assignees.

1. Tax, Equity (ESS) & Statutory Compliance

• Manage equity tax reporting for RSUs and stock options, including verifying and filing annual Employee Share Scheme (ESS) statements and reports with the ATO.
• Reconcile, verify, and complete all month-end and year-end statutory requirements, including Single Touch Payroll (STP Phase 2) finalisations, Superannuation Guarantee contributions, and state-by-state payroll tax returns.
• Perform regular payroll audits, support Australian Government statutory payroll reporting, reconciliations, and variance analyses in close partnership with the Finance and Accounting teams.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years of hands-on Australian payroll experience managing high-volume corporate payrolls (300+ employees).
• Australian Regulatory Mastery: Deep functional knowledge of Australian employment standards (Fair Work Act, NES, Modern Awards), ATO withholding rules, Superannuation Guarantee, and state payroll taxes.
• Equity Compensation: Proven experience reporting RSUs and stock compensation in Australia, ideally across both pre-IPO and post-IPO environments (including ESS annual reporting).
• Terminations & ETPs: Extensive practical experience calculating complex terminations (genuine redundancies, invalidity, notice periods) and applying proper ATO tax caps and treatments.
• Salary Packaging & Benefits: Direct experience setting up and administering novated leases and superannuation funds.
• Global Mobility: Direct experience running shadow payroll for inbound and outbound cross-border employees.
• Employee-Facing Support: Demonstrated experience serving as the lead, employee-facing point of contact for complex payroll and benefits enquiries.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience processing payroll in Workday or other cloud-based payroll systems.
• Experience coordinating small international payrolls across the broader APAC region (e.g. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan).
• Experience in supporting WGEA reporting.

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams

Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.

To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:

• No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.

• Please always verify communications:
  • Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an @anduril.com address.
  • Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.

• Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.

• What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to contact@anduril.com. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.

Data Privacy

To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.

By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.