Payroll & Accounts Payable Specialist

PAYROLL & ACCOUNTS PAYABLE SPECIALIST EL SEGUNDO, CA | COLORADO SPRINGS, CO | MOORESVILLE, NC | OR FULLY REMOTE | FULL-TIME | REPORTS TO: CONTROLLER Cambium is a global company building the advanced materials base for reindustrialization — from AI-driven molecular design to agile domestic manufacturing. Defense, aerospace, and other high-performance applications demand materials that are stronger, lighter, and more resilient, delivered at unprecedented speed and scale. Our team of world-class scientists and engineers was assembled specifically to take on those challenges. Whether enabling hypersonic flight or protecting critical systems, our solutions solve mission-critical problems and push the limits of what's possible. Come join us and revolutionize advanced materials for defense, aerospace, and beyond. THE ROLE Cambium is building out its accounting organization, and this is a foundational hire into it. You will run the transaction engine of the finance function — US payroll through ADP and TriNet, purchase orders and vendor invoices in Ramp, corporate card coding, and export controls screening of the vendors and suppliers we buy from — and you will own the accuracy of how all of it lands in Intuit Enterprise Suite. This is the seat where accuracy is not a preference. If you take quiet satisfaction in a clean AP aging, a payroll register that ties, and a vendor file that needs no explanation, this is your kind of work. It is also a build role in a real sense. Most of what you will run does not yet exist in documented form. You will inherit responsibility before you inherit process, and you will be the person who writes the procedures, checklists, and calendars that the next three people in this function rely on. Cambium is fast-paced and entrepreneurial; we are looking for someone who brings order without bureaucracy, and asks the question rather than guessing at the coding. The scope is deliberately transactional today. As the accounting organization takes shape, we expect this seat to take on general ledger and month-end close work and to grow toward a Staff or Senior Accountant role, so we would rather hire someone who wants that path than someone looking to stay in processing. The position can be based at El Segundo, CA, Colorado Springs, CO, or Mooresville, NC — or fully remote, with occasional travel to Cambium sites. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Run payroll · Process payroll end to end through ADP and TriNet for all US entities, including new hires, terminations, salary and status changes, bonuses, commissions, retroactive adjustments, and off-cycle payments. · Review the register and preview reports every cycle before submission, reconcile against the prior period, and resolve variances before payroll goes out rather than after. · Work with People Ops on employee data changes so that the source of truth is unambiguous and flows correctly into each platform — including the differences in how a PEO and a direct provider handle the same change. · Reconcile payroll funding, tax deposits, and benefit deductions; chase and clear discrepancies with the providers rather than letting them age. · Support quarterly and annual filings and W-2 processing performed by the providers, including reconciliation of Forms 941 and state filings back to the general ledger. · Prepare payroll journal entries and payroll-related accruals, including PTO and bonus accruals. · Answer employee payroll questions accurately, quickly, and with absolute discretion. Own accounts payable and purchasing operations · Enter purchase orders in Ramp and move them through the approval workflow, working with requesters across R&D, Operations, and G&A to get them right the first time. · Enter and code vendor invoices in Ramp, match to purchase orders and receipts, and resolve exceptions with requesters and vendors instead of parking them. · Own the vendor master: collect W-9s and banking documentation, validate vendor details, and keep the records complete and audit-ready. · Prepare payment runs for review and approval, and manage the AP aging so that Cambium stays current with the suppliers our production depends on. · Reconcile vendor statements and research and resolve invoice, payment, and credit discrepancies. · Process corporate card activity and employee expense reports in Ramp, coding to the correct account, department, and site, and holding the line on the expense policy. Screen the supply chain · Perform restricted and denied party screening on new vendors and suppliers as a gate in vendor onboarding, and re-screen the existing base on a defined cycle. · Document every screening result and retain the evidence to the standard an auditor or a government customer would expect. · Escalate potential matches and ambiguous results to Legal and Trade Compliance immediately and hold onboarding until they are cleared. You run and document the screen; you do not adjudicate it. · Maintain the screening log and support internal and external reviews of the process. Build the process and respect the controls · Write the desktop procedures, checklists, and calendars for every area you own, to a standard where someone else can cover your work while you are on vacation. · Pull documentation and prepare schedules for audit, review, and diligence requests covering payroll, accounts payable, and vendor records. · Operate inside a defined segregation-of-duties model: you prepare and enter, and approval of purchases and invoices, release of payments and payroll funding, and review of your entries sit with your manager. Flag it when a workaround would compromise that split. · Find and fix the friction — the coding question that comes up every month, the vendor setup that always stalls, the manual step that should not be manual — and propose the improvement. KEY REQUIREMENTS · 3+ years of combined payroll and accounts payable experience, including at least two years of genuine hands-on payroll processing ownership rather than data entry support. · Direct experience running payroll in a third-party platform — ADP, TriNet, Paylocity, Rippling, Gusto, or comparable. Multi-state payroll experience is required; experience across both a PEO and a direct-provider model is a significant plus. · Full-cycle accounts payable knowledge, including three-way match, PO-based purchasing, and vendor master management. · An interest in growing into general ledger and month-end close work. Journal entry and reconciliation experience is welcome but not required today — the appetite to learn it is. · Hands-on experience in a cloud ERP or mid-market accounting system — Intuit Enterprise Suite, QuickBooks Online Advanced, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, or similar. We use Intuit Enterprise Suite; we will teach it to the right person. · Experience with Ramp or a comparable spend management platform (Brex, Navan, Coupa, Bill.com) is a strong plus. · Exposure to export controls, denied party screening, ITAR, or EAR is a plus, not a requirement. We will train the right person on our screening process. · Strong Excel — we are a Microsoft 365 shop — including lookups, pivot tables, and reconciling data sets larger than the eye can check. · Experience in a multi-entity environment, and in manufacturing, hardware, industrial, or aerospace/defense, is preferred. · Proven discretion with confidential compensation and employee data. This is not negotiable. · The instinct to catch your own error before someone else does, and the confidence to raise it when you do. · Clear written and verbal communication — you can explain a coding question or a payroll discrepancy to an engineer who has no interest in accounting, and get what you need from them. · Comfort with ambiguity, limited existing process, and shifting priorities; low ego, high ownership, and a bias toward writing it down. · Associate's or bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. FPC or CPP certification welcome, not required. SALARY/BENEFITS: Base salary range by location: El Segundo, CA $74,000–$88,000; Colorado Springs, CO $63,000–$77,000; Mooresville, NC $62,000–$76,000. Actual offer depends on work location and experience. Cambium offers a highly competitive compensation and benefits plan. This includes excellent medical/dental/vision benefits, and a matching 401(k) plan, professional development reimbursement, and an opportunity for equity for most full-time positions.