Lead Payroll Analyst - Customer Success

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Inc. (MHIA) is looking for a Customer Success – Lead Payroll Analyst to join our team. This is an onsite role based out of our Houston Texas HQ Office located in the Galleria District.

 

ABOUT MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES AMERICA, INC. (MHIA):

For over 130 years Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group’s innovative and integrated solutions have demonstrated our commitment to creating a positive social impact around the globe. Our range of products and services are tailored to meet our customers’ evolving needs across the commercial aviation, energy, transportation and infrastructure, machinery, defense and space systems sectors.

 

Our culture embraces diversity and cooperation, and we promote a healthy balance of professional and personal development, ensuring that your ideas and expertise are valued and respected.

 

SCOPE:

The Lead Payroll Analyst is the single point of operational accountability for payroll delivered through MHIA’s managed-service model. The role does not execute payroll; UKG executes payroll, and the role does not configure the payroll system. The Lead ensures that what UKG produces and what the system produces are accurate, timely, compliant, and aligned with expected outcomes every cycle.

 

Operating under the principle that execution is external but accountability is internal, the Lead governs vendor performance, validates payroll and system outputs, and serves as the single point of contact among MHIA, its affiliates, UKG, and MHIA HRIS. The Senior Payroll Tax Analyst engages directly with UKG Tax on technical matters under Lead visibility; the Lead maintains visibility across those exchanges and owns the integrity of the payroll outcome.

 

The defining accountability of this role is twofold: “Is the payroll correct, and is the system producing it sound?” The Lead must answer both with evidence, requiring the ability to manually calculate and recreate payroll scenarios independent of the system, and define the expected outcomes against which system outputs are validated.

 

The ideal candidate will have at least a minimum of eight (8) years of payroll experience, including direct experience supporting payroll operations delivered through a managed-service model.

 

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Serve as the single point of operational contact between MHIA, its affiliates, and UKG; consolidate direction to the vendor so there is one voice on delivery.
• Hold UKG accountable for service delivery against contracted standards, including accuracy, timeliness, and responsiveness.
• Maintain visibility across all vendor engagements, including direct domain exchanges between the Senior Payroll Tax Analyst and UKG Tax with no side channels.
• Track vendor defects, processing errors, and service gaps; drive corrective action and confirm resolution.
• Validate payroll outputs produced by UKG earnings, deductions, taxes, and net pay against expected outcomes, internal policy, and applicable regulations.
• Manually calculate and recreate payroll scenarios outside the system to confirm accuracy and identify discrepancies.
• Review and challenge vendor outputs; require evidence rather than assertion when results do not reconcile.
• Investigate payroll discrepancies and perform root cause analysis to determine whether issues originate from inputs, system configuration, integrations, or vendor processing.
• Support US and Canadian expatriate payroll and other complex scenarios requiring advanced payroll expertise.
• Define expected payroll outcomes against which system outputs are validated; serve as the technical payroll subject matter expert for system behavior, without performing system configuration.
• Partner with MHIA HRIS and UKG HRIS to ensure system configurations produce accurate, compliant payroll results; validate that configuration changes deliver the intended outcomes before they go live.
• Develop test scenarios, execute user acceptance testing (UAT), and validate system, integration, and vendor changes that affect payroll outcomes.
• Support setup and validation of new state and local tax jurisdictions in partnership with the Senior Tax Analyst.
• Validate year-end system outputs, including W-2, W-2C, and T-4 reporting.
• Partner with the Senior Payroll Tax Analyst on tax-related matters; confirm payroll impact and route operational corrections through the Lead while tax technical exchange occurs directly with UKG Tax under Lead visibility.
• Coordinate across HR, Finance, HRIS, and vendor teams to ensure payroll inputs, system behavior, and out