Payroll Specialist

Location: Remote in the United States or Canada. The role requires maintaining a home base in the country of hire; the position is not available as a borderless work-from-anywhere role.

Compensation: US$80,000–US$100,000 in the United States or CA$80,000–CA$95,000 in Canada, plus equity.

Company

Sardine provides an agentic risk platform that helps organizations prevent fraud, financial crime, and AI-driven attacks through integrated risk data and automated fraud and AML operations.

What you will do

• Manage end-to-end payroll for employees across the United States, Canada, Lithuania, and other global entities, including contractor and EOR arrangements.
• Process regular, off-cycle, correction, retroactive, bonus, commission, garnishment, and disability-related payroll payments.
• Manage payroll taxes, state registrations, agency notices, quarterly amendments, unemployment claims, and year-end corrections.
• Oversee payroll, EOR, benefits, and retirement-plan vendors, including Rippling, Deel, Fidelity, and Wealthsimple.
• Establish SOPs, internal controls, variance reporting, FX reconciliations, and payroll balance-sheet reconciliations.
• Partner with People Operations and Finance on equity awards, stipends, reimbursements, accruals, audits, and payroll compliance.

Requirements

• 5+ years of payroll experience, including independent processing of multi-state US payroll.
• Required experience with Canadian payroll, payroll tax compliance, state agencies, correction runs, retroactive payments, tax notices, and year-end reporting.
• Strong knowledge of US federal, state, and local payroll regulations and tax requirements.
• Strong understanding of payroll accounting, accruals, liabilities, reconciliations, and financial statement audit support.
• Ability to analyze payroll data, resolve complex discrepancies, and manage deadlines in a high-compliance environment.
• High integrity, discretion, attention to detail, professionalism, and cross-functional communication skills.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote-first work environment with flexibility within the country of hire.
• Cash compensation and equity, including early exercise for all options.
• Flexible paid time off and a year-end break.
• Health, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
• US and Canada retirement matching, with 401(k) or RRSP contributions.
• MacBook Pro, home-office setup stipend, meal and social meet-up stipends, health and wellness stipend, and annual learning stipend.