Tax Operations Manager, Rippling Direct

About Rippling

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.

Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365—all within 90 seconds.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B+ from the world’s top investors—including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrock—and was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.

We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from @Rippling.com addresses.

About The Tax Operations Manager, Rippling Direct Role

The US Tax Operations team ensures that Rippling’s Direct clients remain compliant with federal, state, and local tax regulations. As the Tax Operations Manager, Rippling Direct, you will lead the team responsible for resolving tax notices issued directly to client FEINs and state accounts.

Unlike the PEO model, Rippling Direct clients file under their own tax IDs. Notices are issued at the individual employer level, requiring precision in account-level reconciliation, agency correspondence, and client communication. You will manage high-volume, client-specific tax notice operations, mitigate financial exposure for customers, and drive systemic improvements in Direct tax workflows.

This role requires operational rigor, strong tax technical depth, and the ability to lead a team managing large notice volumes while maintaining SLA adherence and high resolution quality.

Key Areas of Focus

Direct Client Operational Management

• Client Account Stewardship: Oversee resolution of federal and state tax notices issued to Direct client accounts. Ensure timely resolution to prevent penalties, levies, or account standing issues.
• Account-Level Liability Management: Manage workflows associated with 941 discrepancies, FUTA/SUTA variances, withholding reconciliations, and state account mismatches specific to Direct filings.
• Risk Mitigation: Prioritize work based on client financial exposure and compliance risk. Drive timely abatements and corrections to protect clients from unnecessary penalties and interest.

People Leadership & Development

• Team Leadership: Manage a team of Operations Specialists (8+ reportees). Build a culture of ownership, accuracy, and urgency in client-facing tax operations.
• Technical Upskilling: Train the team on Direct tax workflows including federal and multi-state withholding, SUI rate validations, amended returns, agency portals, and notice response strategy.
• Performance Accountability: Drive adherence to KPIs including SLA, TAT, QA scores, backlog management, and client impact metrics.

Strategic Process Improvement

• Notice Intake & Workflow Optimization: Oversee indexing, queue assignment, and resolution lifecycle of Direct client notices. Improve intake accuracy and reduce “Unassigned” or “Aging” cases.
• Root Cause Analysis: Partner with Product, Engineering, and Filing teams to identify systemic causes of recurring notices (rate mismatches, filing delays, registration gaps) and implement scalable fixes.
• Automation & Scalability: Support initiatives to reduce manual dependencies in notice matching, reconciliation, and penalty tracking.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Agency Coordination: Support escalations involving federal and state tax agencies for complex Direct client disputes.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with Implementation, Registrations, Customer Support, and Product teams to reduce downstream tax noise from onboarding, offboarding, and mid-year transitions.
• Client Escalation Management: Serve as escalation point for high-impact or high-visibility Direct client tax controversies.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage daily operations of the Direct Notice Resolution team and ensure SLA compliance.
• Monitor queue health and reduce backlog of aging or unassigned notices.
• Lead investigations into SUI rate discrepancies and filing variances at client level.
• Analyze penalty trends and implement abatement strategies to reduce client financial exposure.
• Serve as final escalation point for complex Direct tax issues.
• Develop and maintain SOPs for Direct notice resolution workflows.
• Drive reporting mechanisms for leadership visibility on notice volume, penalty impact, and compliance risk.

Performance Metrics

• Financial Protection: Dollar value of penalties abated and interest saved for Direct clients.
• Queue Health: Backlog within SLA targets; reduction in aging > X days.
• Resolution Quality: QA scores consistently above 95%.
• Client Impact: Reduction in repeat notices for the same root cause.
• Operational Efficiency: Improvement in TAT and indexing accuracy.

Roadmap (First 6–12 Months)

Initial 30 Days

• Operational Audit: Review queue health, aging buckets, and high-risk client accounts.
• Team Assessment: Evaluate technical proficiency across federal and multi-state Direct workflows.
• Workflow Mapping: Map end-to-end lifecycle of Direct notices (intake → indexing → resolution → closure).

First 90 Days

• Process Stabilization: Strengthen indexing accuracy and SLA tracking.
• Metric Alignment: Define KPIs specific to Direct client resolution speed and quality.
• SOP Standardization: Update documentation to align with latest agency requirements and internal workflows.

First 6 Months

• Automation Initiatives: Partner with Product to automate notice categorization and penalty tracking.
• Proactive Compliance Audits: Launch recurring SUI rate and filing validation checks to reduce incoming notices.
• Trend Analytics: Build reporting dashboards for leadership visibility into notice drivers and risk areas.

Candidate Requirements

• Total Experience: 5+ years in Tax Operations
• Managerial Experience: 2+ years managing a team (minimum 8 direct reportees)
• Strong knowledge of US Federal and Multi-State payroll tax
• Experience handling tax notices, abatements, reconciliations, and agency coordination
• Operational mindset with data-driven decision making

Key skills/competency

• US Federal Payroll Tax
• Multi-State Payroll Tax
• Tax Notice Resolution
• Tax Abatement
• Team Leadership
• Operational Management
• SLA Adherence
• Process Improvement
• Risk Mitigation
• Client Account Management