Implementation Consultant

Overview

Smartly, a company under Datacom, aims to simplify payroll management for New Zealand businesses. Their platform supports over 20,000 businesses by ensuring timely, accurate payroll processing in compliance with legislation. As an expanding FinTech firm exploring adjacent markets, Smartly offers a dynamic and engaging workplace with excellent chances for growth and skill development.

Role Summary

The Implementation Consultant will guide new Smartly customers from initial sign-up to their inaugural successful payroll run, ensuring the payroll system functions properly and delivers real value. This position involves complete ownership of the entire implementation journey: comprehending customer business and payroll workflows, tailoring the Smartly solution accordingly, migrating and validating employee and payroll data, performing system testing, and leading clients through go-live procedures.

For smaller clients, this role serves as the sole point of contact managing both client relations and technical delivery. For larger or more complex deployments, the consultant collaborates with a Service Delivery team member for implementation success. The priority is to facilitate a smooth, swift transition to a reliable first payroll run.

The consultant will also provide informal training by demonstrating product usage and occasionally assisting clients through their initial or parallel payroll runs. While professional training experience is not mandatory, comfort in instructing customers interactively is essential.

Work Environment

Positioned within the Activation team under Go-to-Market, this hands-on role balances technical problem-solving with client engagement. There are growth opportunities leading to more advanced and higher-impact implementations as Smartly's approach evolves. Wellington is preferred for proximity to the head office and fostering learning, but Auckland candidates who can operate largely online post onboarding will be considered. Occasional in-person meetings are encouraged alongside remote work benefits.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage full-cycle customer implementations from project initiation, configuration, data migration, through to a successful payroll execution.
• Analyze each customer's payroll and operational workflows to tailor the Smartly software accordingly.
• Handle data mapping, migration, validation, and reconciliation of employee payroll details, including leave balances and historical entitlements, ensuring accuracy pre go-live.
• Guide customers step-by-step through setup processes, empowering them to confidently operate the software before launch.
• Conduct first or parallel payroll runs collaboratively with the client to validate processes.
• Perform thorough system testing and address issues, escalating technical challenges to Product and Integration teams when necessary.
• Maintain proactive communication, clear expectation setting, and a professional client relationship throughout implementation.
• Simultaneously manage multiple implementation projects with diligent tracking and documentation.
• Identify and remedy friction points in the implementation workflow; contribute to standardizing and improving processes, configuration templates, and migration practices.
• Collaborate closely with Service Delivery, Training, Product, Support, and Sales teams to ensure a seamless customer journey.
• Securely handle sensitive customer and employee data, complying with privacy regulations.

Required Qualifications and Skills

• Minimum of two years of concrete experience leading end-to-end implementations or SaaS onboarding, including customer engagement through configuration and data migration to go-live.
• Proficiency in configuring systems and meticulously migrating customer data.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability to interpret requirements, adapt system settings, troubleshoot, and escalate as needed.
• Project management skills to guide customers through multi-step implementations and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills, capable of explaining technical details to non-technical users.
• Comfortable delivering live instructional sessions, facilitating product demonstrations, answering queries, and coaching clients through payroll runs.
• Exceptional organization, planning, and time management abilities.
• Customer-first perspective emphasizing rapid delivery of value.
• Adaptable, energetic, calm in high-pressure situations, and collaborative in team environments.
• Relevant tertiary degree in business, information systems, technology or a related field.

Desirable Attributes

• Understanding of payroll, HRIS, workforce management, or payroll processes is beneficial but not required.
• Experience with migrating complex employee/payroll data, including leave and historical records.
• Exposure to both self-service onboarding and comprehensive, personalized client implementations.
• Background in process improvement or optimization of the implementation lifecycle.
• Experience in training, enablement, or managing organizational change.
• Familiarity with CRM and onboarding tools such as HubSpot.

Why Join Us

• Direct ownership over the full customer implementation cycle.
• Opportunity to influence and enhance customer onboarding and value realization processes.
• Potential career advancement into more complex and higher value implementation projects.