Senior Payroll Specialist

Crinetics is a pharmaceutical company based in San Diego, California, developing much-needed therapies for people with endocrine diseases and endocrine-related tumors. We were founded by a dedicated team of scientists with the simple belief that better therapies developed from rigorous innovation can lead to better lives. Our work continues to make a real difference in the lives of patients. We have a prolific discovery engine and a robust preclinical and clinical development pipeline. We are driven by science with a patient-centric and team-oriented culture. This is an exciting time to join Crinetics as we shape our organization into the world’s premier fully-integrated endocrine company from discovery to patients. Join our team as we transform the lives of others.

Position Summary:

Reporting to the Senior Manager, Payroll, the Senior Payroll Specialist is responsible for supporting accurate, timely, and compliant payroll operations. This role provides critical backup for U.S. payroll processing, manages U.K. payroll coordination, ensures payroll tax compliance, and supports audits, reconciliations, and equity compensation processing while delivering excellent customer service to employees.

Essential Job Functions and Responsibilities:

These may include but are not limited to:

• Provide backup support to the Payroll Specialist for semi-monthly U.S. on-cycle payroll and off-cycle payrolls, including terminations, using Workday.
• Coordinate and manage monthly United Kingdom payroll processing with third-party payroll vendor and validate payroll outputs.
• Process and reconcile equity compensation transactions reported as ordinary income into payroll and perform YTD wage reconciliations.
• Review, audit, and validate payroll entries to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and compliance with company policies and applicable regulations.
• Review and respond to payroll-related correspondence including tax notices, agency letters, and garnishment orders.
• Assist in maintaining employee payroll and tax profiles in Workday, including multi-state and multi-jurisdiction taxation.
• Assist with establishing new account registrations for tax withholdings and benefit leave/disability accounts with various federal, state and local agencies.
• Verify compliance with all local, state, and federal laws regarding payroll, tax filings and reporting.
• Follow appropriate state and federal taxation of employer paid benefits.
• Responsible for compiling payroll data, maintaining payroll records, and preparation of various spreadsheets or account analysis reports as directed.
• Assist with documenting and maintaining payroll processes, controls, and procedures.
• Perform regular payroll audits to ensure proper payroll processing such as benefit deductions, PTO accrual, holiday pay, overtime pay and leave of absence validation.
• Perform payroll reconciliations and ad hoc reporting to support audits, management requests, and payroll-related projects.
• Respond to payroll-related inquiries from employees in a timely and accurate manner.
• Comply with organizational policies, procedures, performance improvement initiatives and maintain organizational and industry policies regarding confidentiality.
• Assist in coordination of audits of internal records, 401K, workers’ compensation, tax filings and related documentation.
• Assist with quarterly and year-end payroll tax filings and reconciliations, including Forms 941, W-2, W-3, and applicable state and local filings.
• Perform other duties, tasks and projects as assigned, contributing to the overall success of the payroll function.
• Other duties as assigned

Education and Experience:

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business or Accounting
• Experience in HRIS/payroll software
• 5 years of payroll or accounting experience
• In-depth understanding of payroll procedures, internal controls, audit trails and appropriate documentation, laws, and taxes
• Advanced Excel skills, particularly in working with Pivot tables and VLOOKUP, enabling effective data analysis and reporting
• Software Knowledge: Windows, MS Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

Preferred:

• CPP or FPC Certified is a plus
• SOX 404(b) experience
• NetSuite experience
• Paycor and Workday experience a plus

Physical Demands and Work Environment:

Physical Activities: On a continuous basis, sit at desk for a long period of time; intermittently answer telephone and write or use a keyboard to communicate through written means. Some walking and lifting up to 25 lbs. may be required. The noise level in the work environment is typically low to moderate. The physical demands described above