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Head of Product Compliance

New York, New York

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Who We Are

At Justworks, you’ll enjoy a welcoming and casual environment, great benefits, wellness program offerings, company retreats, and the ability to interact with and learn from leaders in the startup community. We work hard and care about our most prized asset - our people.

We’re helping businesses get off the ground by enabling them to focus on running their business. We solve HR issues. We’re data-driven and never stop iterating. If you’d like to work in a supportive, entrepreneurial environment, are interested in building something meaningful and having fun while doing it, we’d love to hear from you.

We're united by shared goals and shared motivations at Justworks. These are best summed up in our company values, which are reflected in our product and in our team.

Our Values (https://www.justworks.com/careers#values)

If this sounds like you, you’ll fit right in.

Who You Are

You’re an experienced compliance executive with a proven ability to embed regulatory requirements into products and operational processes at scale. You combine regulatory depth with product and business acumen, balancing risk mitigation with practical, scalable enablement for customers and internal teams. You excel at operationalizing compliance through systems, automation, and cross-functional partnership to ensure our products remain both compliant and competitive.

Your Success Profile

As the Head of Product Compliance, you will lead a centralized Operations function accountable for ensuring all Justworks products and operational processes are compliant by design and aligned with evolving regulatory standards. You will elevate product compliance as a strategic differentiator, strengthening customer trust and enabling innovation in regulated domains. You will set the strategic direction and drive the operational rigor necessary to maintain compliance at scale, enabling customers to confidently meet complex payroll, tax, payments, employment, and benefits requirements.

Build and Lead the Product Compliance Function

+ Recruit, coach, and develop a high-performing team that fosters ownership, clarity, and continuous improvement.

+ Define and implement the strategy, structure, and operating model for a centralized Product Compliance function.

+ Establish clear ownership and accountability across product-related compliance domains, including regulatory research, product requirements, governance, and quality assurance.

+ Partner with Product, Engineering, and Operations to ensure compliance is intentionally embedded into product design, system architecture, workflows, and decision-making.

Drive Compliance Excellence and Product Governance

+ Develop and maintain product-focused compliance frameworks and policies that ensure our offerings meet applicable federal, state, and international regulations related to payroll, tax, benefits, payments, and international employment.

+ Ensure product and operational readiness for key certifications and audits (e.g., ESAC, CPEO, SOC), partnering with enterprise compliance teams where appropriate.

+ Implement governance mechanisms that ensure proactive regulatory interpretation, risk identification, escalation, and resolution across product lines.

Advance Product Compliance Enablement and Automation

+ Collaborate with Product and Engineering to translate regulatory requirements into product specifications, system logic, and automated controls.

+ Leverage automation and AI to build scalable, auditable compliance workflows and reduce manual risk.

+ Create and maintain a single source of truth for product compliance documentation, decisions, and knowledge to ensure consistency and visibility across teams.

Lead Through Influence and Vision

+ Serve as the senior compliance voice in strategic decision-making, balancing customer experience, product innovation, and regulatory risk.

+ Shape the narrative around product compliance as a driver of customer trust and differentiation, not just a risk function.

+ Influence long-term product strategy by providing forward-looking regulatory insights, ensuring teams anticipate and build for future compliance requirements rather than react to them.

How You Will Do Your Work

As Head of Product Compliance, how results are achieved is as important as what you achieve. You’ll demonstrate:

+ Strategic Vision & Planning: Set a long-term vision for compliance that aligns with Justworks’ mission and anticipates future regulatory trends.

+ Decisive, Data-Driven Leadership: Use analytics and insights to prioritize compliance risks, design efficient controls, and measure outcomes.

+ Change Management & Transformation: Lead organizational transformation by embedding compliance into operational and product lifecycles.

+ Cross-Functional Influence: Build trust and alignment with Legal, Product, Engineering, and Operations leaders to execute complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives.

+ Inclusive, Growth-Oriented Leadership: Foster psychological safety, encourage diverse perspectives, and develop emerging leaders across your team.

Our Values

All Justworkers align with our core values, known as COGIS:

+ Camaraderie – Work together with purpose and empathy.

+ Openness – Default to transparency and curiosity.

+ Grit – Commit and persevere with optimism.

+ Integrity – Do what you say and say what you’ll do.

+ Simplicity – Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Qualifications

+ 15+ years of progressive experience in compliance or regulatory operations, with at least 8 years leading multi-disciplinary teams in a fast-paced environment.

+ Demonstrated success building or transforming compliance programs for technology products operating in highly regulated industries.

+ Experience managing relationships with regulators, auditors, and external counsel.

+ Strong data literacy and comfort partnering with Product and Engineering teams to operationalize compliance.

+ Proven track record of leading organizational change, influencing senior executives, and building scalable controls and systems.

+ Knowledge or experience in domestic and international employment, payroll, payments, benefits, and/or tax compliance frameworks across multiple jurisdictions a plus.

The base wage range for this position based in our New York City office is targeted at $225,000 - $270,000 per year. #LI-SD1 #LI-Hybrid

Actual compensation is based on multiple factors that are unique to each candidate, including and not limited to skill set, level of relevant experience, and specific work location. Salary ranges for positions based in other locations may differ based on the cost of labor in that location.

For more information about Justworks’ Total Reward Philosophy, including all of the perks and benefits we are proud to offer our team members, please visit Total Rewards @ Justworks (https://www.justworks.com/careers#total-reward-philosophy) .

Diversity At Justworks

Justworks is committed to maintaining a workplace where diversity of identity, culture, and life experience is the norm and is celebrated authentically and respected consistently. Diversity in our work, our people, and our product drives creativity and innovation, entrepreneurial leadership and integrity, competitiveness, and collaboration throughout our business and in the market. We depend on our differences to make our team stronger, our workplace more dynamic, and our product accessible to all of our customers.

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer open to all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or familial status, disability, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status. Justworks is fully dedicated to providing necessary support to candidates with disabilities who may require reasonable accommodations. We also provide reasonable accommodations to employees based on their sincerely held religious beliefs, as well as for other covered reasons consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. If you're in need of a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Your comfort and success matter to us, and we're here to ensure an inclusive experience.

Our DEIB Report (https://www.justworks.com/press/company-news/justworks-impact-report-2024)