People Operations & Payroll Lead

Team description

The People Enablement team ensures every SumUpper has a consistent, high-quality experience throughout their time here, from their first day to their last. We're building something ambitious: a People Ops and Payroll function that's faster, smarter, and built to scale across borders. As the lead for Northern Europe, you'll shape how a team of eight operates across Germany, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium turning complexity into clarity and manual work into automation. This is a role where you will bring structure, automation, and clear ownership to a function that's built to scale.

📽 Berlin

What you'll do

Lead and develop a team of eight People Ops and Payroll partners, consolidating two distinct functions into one integrated, accountable regional team

Map, redesign, and scale core processes across the full employee lifecycle — from onboarding through to offboarding — ensuring accuracy, compliance, and efficiency across all markets

Identify and implement automation opportunities using no-code and low-code tools, reducing manual effort and setting a new standard for how the team works

Build a success measurement framework covering SLAs, error rates, and processing times — and report on this regularly to senior stakeholders

Partner with Finance, People Partners, Legal, and Compliance to ensure payroll accuracy and regulatory alignment across Germany, the UK, and beyond

You'll be great for this role if…

Proven leadership experience in multi-country People Ops, with Germany as a core market and exposure to the UK, Ireland, or the Netherlands

Strong knowledge of German employment law and HR compliance requirements, with the ability to navigate complex legal scenarios confidently across the employee lifecycle

A solid understanding of payroll processes across EU markets, with UK employment law knowledge considered a strong plus

A clear track record of delivering process improvements and automation initiatives, with conc