Senior Business Systems Lead, Payroll & Time (Dayforce)

At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect, cultivating an inclusive environment where all team members can thrive. As the Business Systems Lead for Payroll & Time, you will lead Lyft's global migration onto Dayforce following recent acquisitions. Sitting within People Technology in Corporate Engineering and IT (CEIT), you'll join Lyft's Dayforce program at a formative moment: the initial rollout spans 12–15 countries over two-plus years, and you're joining early enough to directly shape how implementation, governance, and vendor management get done — not inherit a playbook someone else already wrote. You'll be backed by a mature, experienced Payroll Operations team who bring deep subject-matter expertise, while you own the technical and functional side: driving requirements, directing our systems integrator, and building the governance and vendor management model you'll run long-term as the platform's product/service owner. Sitting within People Technology in CEIT, you will drive requirements, make key functional decisions, and partner closely with Payroll Operations, HR, Legal, and Finance. You'll lead vendor delivery to ensure accurate, compliant payroll and time tracking across each migration wave, then own platform governance and vendor management long-term once the program stabilizes. We're looking for someone who can act as the translation layer between operations, executives, and technical teams — equally comfortable explaining payroll concepts to engineers and system constraints to business stakeholders. Responsibilities: Own Requirements and Direct the Implementation Partner • Serve as the internal functional owner for the Dayforce payroll and time migration, driving requirements and directing the systems integrator partner. • Translate payroll policy, collective bargaining terms, and statutory requirements — as defined by Payroll Operations and Legal — into actionable technical specifications. • Validate vendor configurations against country-specific rules, with joint sign-off alongside Payroll Operations, before go-live. • Act as the primary functional escalation point, facilitating trade-off decisions between Payroll Ops, Legal, and vendor teams — owning the technical trade-off while deferring to Payroll Ops/Legal on compliance interpretation. • Partner with Program Management to identify and mitigate risks across migration waves. Drive Migration Waves End-to-End • Scope requirements with cross-functional stakeholders ahead of each phased migration wave across the 12–15 country initial program. • Lead parallel testing and payroll validation cycles to verify system logic against live pay rules prior to cutover. • Manage cutover and hypercare support, serving as the technical escalation point until system stabilization. • Own integration architecture between Dayforce and upstream/downstream systems — including Workday, Oracle ERP, and middleware platforms (Boomi preferred) — ensuring resilient, well-governed data flows. • Align migration schedules with Workday and Oracle ERP initiatives to prevent deployment conflicts. Own Steady-State Configuration and Continuous Improvement • Assume direct functional ownership of Dayforce payroll and time configuration post-implementation, as the platform's long-term product/service owner. • Establish and run governance frameworks and formal vendor management practices — contract oversight, SLA management, escalation processes — that outlast the initial implementation. • Maintain system documentation and runbooks to keep governance transparent and auditable. • Evaluate new vendor releases, system updates, and regulatory changes — partnering with Payroll Ops and Legal on interpretation — to proactively plan platform updates. • Ensure system configuration is built and maintained to the wage-and-hour, statutory pay, and data privacy requirements defined by Payroll Operations and Legal. • Streamline operations by automating manual payroll and time-tracking workarounds. • Support future expansion into scheduling configuration and provide system evidence for internal and external payroll audits. Experience: Required Qualifications • 6+ years of functional payroll and time tracking systems experience, with strong hands-on configuration expertise in Ceridian Dayforce. • Experience establishing governance frameworks and formal vendor management practices (contract oversight, SLA management, escalation processes) as a product or service owner — not solely as a project-based implementer. • Hands-on experience with middleware/integration architecture connecting payroll and time systems to upstream HCM and downstream ERP/finance systems; Boomi experience strongly preferred. • Proven track record as an internal functional owner managing system integrator delivery and holding vendors formally accountable. • Deep domain expertise in core payroll: earnings, deductions, tax setup, accruals, overtime, and multi-country/multi-state compliance. • Strong payroll literacy with a demonstrated ability to translate between payroll/operations terminology and technical/systems language — for both practitioner and executive audiences. • Demonstrated ability to translate business policy, legal, and collective bargaining agreements into system requirements. • Strong root-cause troubleshooting skills across complex payroll and time tracking scenarios. • Experience leading system strategy across multi-country, multi-phase transformation programs. • Excellent stakeholder management skills, capable of bridging technical detail with business and executive audiences. Preferred Qualifications • Experience leading global payroll transformations or M&A integrations with third-party implementation partners — international/cross-border experience strongly preferred. • Familiarity with in-country payroll providers (e.g., TMF, IRIS, Paylocity) used during transitional phases. • Hands-on experience with Dayforce time tracking and scheduling mo