Payroll and Benefits Specialist

1. About us:
Viettel Dominicana is the newest mobile network operator entering the Dominican market. We are a subsidiary of Viettel Group, Vietnam's largest telecommunications and technology corporation, which today serves more than 110 million customers across markets in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. We are currently in the build phase to launch commercial operations. For a Payroll & Benefits Specialist, you will not be maintaining someone else's payroll cycle. You will be building the payroll and benefits function of a national operator from zero: the calendar, the controls, the registrations, the vendor relationships, and the employee experience that comes with them.

2. Job description:
(1) Payroll team operations
- Run the end-to-end monthly and off-cycle payroll for all Viettel Dominicana employees, including new hires, transfers, promotions, salary revisions, unpaid leave, final settlements, and retroactive adjustments.
- Set up and maintain the payroll calendar, cut-off dates, approval workflow, and supporting documentation so that every cycle is auditable and reproducible.
- Calculate and process statutory deductions and contributions.
- Prepare and submit periodic and annual tax and social-security reporting to DGII and TSS.
- Administer the regalía pascual (Christmas salary), vacation pay, profit-sharing (bonus), and overtime, night-shift, and holiday premiums in line with the Dominican Labour Code.
- Calculate separation entitlements ? preaviso, cesantía, accrued vacation and proportional regalía ? and prepare the settlement documentation for the Ministry of Labour.
- Reconcile payroll to the general ledger each cycle with Finance, prepare accruals and provisions, and resolve variances.
(2) Benefits and compensation:
- Support salary benchmarking and the annual salary review: gather market data, model scenarios and their cost impact, and prepare the recommendation package for management.
- Maintain the salary structure, grading, and job-mapping records, and keep the C&B data in the HRIS accurate and complete.
- Prepare payroll and headcount cost reports, forecasts, and budget inputs for local management and for Viettel Global headquarters.
(3) Compliance, employee experience, and set-up
- Act as the point of contact for TSS, DGII, INFOTEP, and the Ministry of Labour (Ministerio de Trabajo) on payroll and benefits matters.
- Track changes in Dominican labor, tax, and social-security regulation, assess the impact on the company and process.
- Handle employee questions on pay, deductions, benefits, and entitlements.

3. Job requirement:
- A bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Human Resources, Business Administration, Law, or a related field.
- A minimum of 5 years' experience in payroll and compensation & benefits, with clear ownership of the payroll cycle is a plus.
- Hands-on C&B experience across the full employee life cycle ? onboarding and enrolment, ongoing changes and salary revisions, leave and absence, statutory and voluntary benefits, and separation settlement.
- Fully bilingual in English and Spanish ? professional working proficiency in both, spoken and written.
- Strong Excel skills.
- Nationality: Dominican
Nice to have:
- Experience in telecommunications, technology, or another high-growth sector.
- Experience setting up a payroll function from scratch ? company registration with TSS and DGII, first payroll run, or a payroll-system implementation.