Senior People Operations Partner

About the team

People & Talent at Airwallex is a global team that designs and delivers the people, culture, and workplace foundations that help us scale at pace. We partner closely with leaders across regions to build high‑performing, engaged teams and a consistent employee experience. From hiring and onboarding to performance, development, operations, and workplace experience, we focus on practical, high‑impact work that supports our business and our people as we grow.

Role overview (this is a 7-month contract role)

As our Senior People Operations Partner in Singapore, you will be the on‑the‑ground owner for day‑to‑day people operations across our SEA &EA regions. You will run the core HR operations rhythm across the full employee lifecycle, work with the payroll team to provide payroll inputs and HR governance in partnership with our payroll provider and internal stakeholders, and ensure our local processes stay compliant, accurate and scalable as we grow. You will also be required to continuously seek to improve our processes and/or automate processes.

You’ll partner with SEA & EA leaders and our global People & Talent teams, including our Shared Service Centre team to deliver both global and local people programs—making sure they land in a way that works for our SEA&EA team. This is a hands‑on role with a high degree of ownership in a fast‑growing environment.

What you’ll be doing

Day‑to‑day SEA & EA people operations

• Own day‑to‑day people operations for our SEA & EA entity across the employee lifecycle, including onboarding, changes and offboarding in HR System, payroll platforms and related tools.
• Maintain high data integrity in our HR systems and trackers; ensure changes are processed accurately and on time.
• Coordinate with various functions and managers to ensure a smooth experience for new joiners, internal moves and exits.

Payroll coordination and HR governance

• Coordinate monthly SEA & EA payroll operations end‑to‑end in partnership with payroll vendor and Finance, including managing inputs (new joiners, exits, changes, allowances, variable pay), reviewing draft reports, and resolving discrepancies.
• Ensure pay, tax, CPF, and other statutory components are calculated and processed correctly and on time.
• Maintain strong HR governance for SEA &EA region operationalising employment policies, templates and controls (contracts, letters, checklists, approvals, audit trails).
• Partner with Legal, Finance and global People Ops on entity‑related changes, audits and compliance requirements.

Manager and employee support

• Act as the day‑to‑day People Operations contact for managers across various regions and employees on topics such as contracts and letters, leave and scheduling, probation administration, data changes, and use of People tools.
• Provide clear, practical guidance that balances employee experience, compliance and operational feasibility.
• Escalate higher‑risk or complex cases to People Partners and Legal as appropriate, while owning follow‑through.

Global and local people programs

• Localise and deliver global and regional people programs in SEA & EA (e.g. performance and feedback cycles in Lattice, manager training, benefits changes, HR systems changes).
• Support initiatives on our SEA & EA People & Talent roadmap, such as wellbeing benefits administration, automation projects and process improvements projects
• Partner with the Workplace Experience team to ensure people programs and events are operationalised smoothly.

Process improvement and scaling

• Build and refine standard operating procedures, checklists and controls for SEA & EA HR operations, especially in the context of ongoing scaling.
• Spot recurring issues or failure points in processes and work with global People Ops and Systems teams to improve workflows, templates or automation with AI
• Use tools (AI/Sheets/Excel, HRIS exports, basic reporting) to monitor data quality, payroll accuracy and adherence to timelines.

Who you are

We’re looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but not mandatory.

Minimum qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in HR / People Operations or HR Generalist roles, including direct ownership of day‑to‑day HR operations for a SEA & EA employee population.
• Hands‑on experience coordinating SEA & EA payroll with an in‑house or outsourced provider, including managing monthly inputs, validating outputs and resolvingpayroll‑related employee queries.
• Strong working knowledge of SEA & EA employment fundamentals, such as offer / contract structures, salary components, leave and time‑off rules, and core statutory requirements
• Demonstrated experience working in a fast‑growing or high‑change environment where headcount and processes evolve quickly, with comfort balancing execution detail against changing priorities.
• Demonstrated experience identifying and implementing process improvements and automation solutions within People Operations to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, and build scalable processes.
• Hands-on experience leveraging AI tools and solutions to improve People Operations processes, enhance employee experience, and drive greater efficiency and effectiveness. Experience identifying and implementing practical AI use cases within HR/People Operations is highly desirable.
• High attention to detail, strong organisation and follow‑through, and proven ability to run recurring operational cycles (payroll, onboarding, offboarding, data updates) alongside ad hoc requests.
• Confident using HR and people systems (HRIS, payroll, performance tools) and Google Workspace, with the ability to learn new tools quickly and spot data or process issues in exports and reports.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain HR operations and policies clearly to managers and employees.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience supporting HR operations in a global or regional tech / fintech / product‑led company, partnering with stakeholders across all levels of the organisation.
• Exposure to building or improving HR governance frameworks, including SOPs, controls and documentation for a new or scaling entity.
• Comfortable operating with a high degree of ownership as the on‑the‑ground People Operations contact for a growing hub, including liaising directly with external partners (e.g. payroll, benefits, insurance providers) to troubleshoot and improve processes.
• Curiosity and openness to using AI / automation tools to draft comms, analyse people data, and streamline repetitive workflows—paired with good judgment on review, privacy and tone.

Tagged as: Excel