Sr Director Product Management

About the role

Dayforce is a global human capital management (HCM) company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with operations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. Our award-winning Cloud HCM platform offers a unified solution database and continuous calculation engine, driving efficiency, productivity and compliance for the global workforce. Our brand promise — Makes Work Life Better™ — reflects our commitment to employees, customers, partners and communities globally.

Payroll is the heart of the Dayforce platform: it is where accuracy, compliance, and trust are earned every pay cycle for millions of employees. We are looking for a Senior Director, Product Management, Payroll to own the strategy and outcomes for this business and lead the team that delivers it. This is a player-coach role. You will build, develop, and grow a team of product managers while staying close to the work yourself: shaping strategy, driving prioritization, engaging customers, and driving execution with Engineering and Design. You will set the strategic direction for payroll, using AI as a lever both in the product and in how we work as a product team.

Responsibilities

• People leadership: Lead, coach, and develop a team of product managers; build a culture of ownership, curiosity, and high standards. Set clear goals, give direct feedback, and create growth paths so team members advance in their careers. Raise product craft across the team, including discovery, requirements, and rapid prototyping and analysis.
• Strategy and vision: Own the multi-year vision, strategy, and roadmap for Dayforce Payroll, grounded in market insight, competitive analysis, and customer outcomes. Define where AI changes how payroll gets done, from pay preparation through validation and issue resolution, and ground it in measurable customer outcomes. Make clear, data-backed investment and prioritization decisions, and explain the why to teams and executives.
• Execution: Stay hands-on: show what good looks like in strategy, discovery, and customer work, lean in on the highest-stakes initiatives, and unblock delivery. Partner closely with Engineering and Design to ship high-quality releases on schedule. Own the payroll product backlog and release plans at a portfolio level, balancing compliance, innovation, and technical health.
• Customers and go-to-market: Engage directly and regularly with customers, from executive sponsors to payroll practitioners, through advisory boards, roadmap sessions, and site visits. Lead product response to customer escalations: diagnose root cause, commit to a plan, and communicate it with transparency. Partner with Sales, Services, Support, Product Marketing, and Partners on deal support, launches, enablement, and implementation success. Represent Dayforce Payroll with industry analysts and at customer and industry events.
• Metrics and outcomes: Define and own business and product metrics: adoption, retention, attach and revenue impact, payroll accuracy, processing time, support case volume, and customer satisfaction. Use data to measure outcomes, report progress to leadership, and course-correct quickly.

Requirements

• 10+ years in product management, including 5+ years leading product managers, with experience managing other people leaders.
• Proven player-coach: you have built and developed high-performing teams while personally owning strategy and delivery.
• Track record of setting product strategy for a complex, mission-critical product and turning it into shipped outcomes.
• Proven track record bringing AI to market in enterprise products: identifying high-value use cases, shipping them, and scaling them with measurable customer impact.
• AI-fluent in your own work: you use AI every day for research, analysis, prototyping, and decision-making, and you raise the bar for how your team works with it.
• Strong metrics orientation: you define success measures up front and manage to business and product outcomes, not output.
• Experience working directly with enterprise customers, including leading through escalations with executive stakeholders.
• Skilled cross-functional leader who builds trust with Sales, Services, Support, Engineering, and Marketing.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; comfortable presenting to executives, customers, and industry analysts.
• Enterprise B2B SaaS experience, ideally in HCM, ERP, or fintech, building products where accuracy and regulatory change shape the roadmap; payroll or tax domain knowledge is a strong plus.
• Experience leading distributed, global teams.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Unlimited Time Away From Work (in lieu of accrued vacation time)
• 10 paid US holidays
• Up to 80 hours of paid sick time
• 17 weeks of paid parental leave (subject to applicable policy)
• Volunteer days and participation in Dayforce Cares charity program

Pay

The salary range mentioned in this job description should serve simply as a guide. The final compensation offered may vary based on a variety of factors, including bonuses and/or incentives, or a candidate's experience, skills, budget and location. Our company is committed to providing a fair, equitable, and competitive package that reflects the value an individual brings to the organization.