Lead Product Manager - HR Finance And Planning

About The Role

We’re hiring a Lead Product Manager – Payroll to own the strategic evolution of Keka’s payroll across India, GCC, and the US. This role sits at the intersection of compliance, reliability, and platform extensibility, shaping the foundation that powers our enterprise growth.

As we expand to more demanding customers, Payroll must deliver enterprise‑grade correctness, scale, onboarding velocity, and ecosystem readiness (benefits, tax, payments, BYO‑Payroll). You will define the strategic direction, build data‑backed business cases, and lead phased execution across pods to maximize business impact.

What Makes This Role Unique

• Own the “Why,” not just the “What.” Define strategic direction based on customer/business needs; not a features‑only role.
• Highest regulatory impact. Decisions directly shape compliance correctness, reliability, and trust across geographies.
• Executive partnership. Direct visibility with CPO/CTO and cross‑functional leaders to land strategic bets and resourcing.
  
  

• Define and drive the long-term vision and growth strategy for Payroll, ensuring stability, compliance, and enterprise readiness.
• Independently own Compensation Planning and Benefits charters, while also exploring adjacencies to unlock new revenue streams.
• Synthesize customer research, support data, and market insights into clear strategic themes and translate them into a 2–3 quarter roadmap.
• Make data-backed strategic bets, balancing near-term customer needs with long-term platform investments, and communicate trade-offs effectively.
• Partner with Engineering and Design to architect Payroll and adjacent services for scalability, extensibility, and ecosystem integration.
• Lead cross-functional reviews with Sales, CS, Support, and Finance to align on priorities and embed business outcomes into product decisions.
• Mentor PMs and SPMs within the squad, setting the bar for ownership, problem framing, and decision quality.
• Institutionalize product rituals to raise quality and accountability.
• Represent Payroll with enterprise customers and prospects, validating strategy and strengthening Keka’s market positioning.
  
  

• The ideal candidate will have:
• Domain experience in HR/Payroll/Accounting tech, with a deep understanding of compliance-heavy workflows.
• Proven ability to scale products into new geographies, navigating local compliance and customer nuances.
• Experience in identifying and incubating adjacent opportunities that unlock new revenue streams.
• Strong strategic and execution skills—able to balance enterprise-grade reliability for today’s customers with the vision and investments required for the next leap of growth.
• A history of collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders (Engineering, Sales, CS, Finance) and influencing senior leadership with crisp, data-backed narratives.
  
  

• Lead the Payroll enterprise charter in a company scaling from 10 -> 100.
• High-leverage role impacting adoption, retention, and global readiness.
• Access to C-suite, strategic decision forums, and enterprise customers.
• Autonomy to define Keka’s Payroll evolution into a global platform.