Payroll Compliance Hub
The first step toward a unified reporting experience, giving HR teams a faster and more reliable way to manage W-2 filings with confidence.
View project →
About
Resume
95% fewer schedules and one source of truth
Public sector agencies were managing over 115 disconnected salary schedules due to system limitations. The redesigned model consolidates these into just a few authoritative schedules per agency that scale with real-world complexity.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Team
Project Manager, Dev Lead, QA
Project Duration
12 weeks
Product Context
Enterprise SaaS for government HR and compensation management
KPI Highlights
60%
Faster salary schedule setup by replacing spreadsheet-driven workflows with a unified, system-managed model
$3M+
Influenced CoreHR bookings through improved scalability and trust in compensation data for complex agencies
30%
Reduction in implementation effort for agencies with complex multi-grade, multi-step compensation structures
The Problem
The legacy system only supported a single grade with steps, making it impossible to represent the multi-grade, multi-step structures agencies rely on.
Project Goal
Create a scalable, trustworthy salary schedule system that supports real-world compensation complexity without increasing risk.
Spreadsheet Dependence
Eliminate spreadsheet-driven setup and duplicated schedules by consolidating grades and steps into a unified system.
Improve Visibility
Make grades, steps, and wage impacts clear at a glance through structured hierarchy and matrix views.
Enable Confident Change
Support individual and bulk updates with previews and guardrails so teams can make changes predictably and safely.
Foundational Learning: Understanding Salary Systems
Before speaking with users, I grounded the work by learning how public agencies structure compensation, which helped avoid false assumptions and sharpen discovery.
From Context to Discovery
With the compliance basics in place, I moved into structured discovery to understand how year-end reporting actually works in practice.
4 weeks research
(2-week sprint)
Week 1
- Recruited participants using Calendly
- Set up the pre-interview survey
- Drafted and finalized the mod guide
Weeks 2–4
- Conducted interviews
- Synthesized early themes
10 participants
HR admins experienced with updating salary ranges, managing steps and scales, and handling mass salary changes
User interviews
- Sessions held over Google Meet (1 hour each)
- Pre-interview survey shaped tailored question paths
- Discovery supported by structured mod guides and iterative adjustments
What the Research Revealed
Over 10 user interviews (HR admins across multiple agencies) validated the core problems:
Structures are too fragmented and rigid
“Right now we have ranges and steps, but we cannot see them together in one place. We end up recreating the whole thing in spreadsheets just to understand it.”
Marynelle Tana, Sacramento HRA
Bulk updates are slow, manual, and risky
“We do COLA updates across all grades and steps. Doing that scale by scale and by hand is error prone. I want a mass update tool with a trial run so we can review changes before we commit.”
Mandy Dixon, City of Trussville
Timing and effective dating create avoidable stress
“Our fiscal year starts October 1. In the past we had a tiny window to key in changes, which was stressful and easy to mess up. Being able to future date salary changes weeks in advance would make this much safer.”
Mandie Quigg, City of Athens
Visibility and controls are limited
“We need a matrix style view and better controls. I want to see grades, steps, and ranges clearly, know who can change what, and have an audit trail so we are not relying on trust and manual spot checks.”
Chris Wiener, City of Asheville
From Insights to Requirements
We reviewed themes with PM, engineering, and implementation experts to align scope and risk. This collaboration produced a shared problem statement and MoSCoW priorities for the first release.
Aligning on the future workflow before design
Before designing screens, I mapped the future-state salary schedule workflow to align product and engineering and reduce risk early.
How might we give HR teams a structured way to manage schedules confidently while reducing the manual steps and uncertainty built into today’s workflows?
Low Fidelity Exploration
Explored interaction patterns, update logic, and validation states that reduce cognitive load without limiting control.
Weekly feedback cycles surfaced engineering constraints early and accelerated alignment.
Testing with Internal Experts
We reviewed early directions with NEOGOV’s implementation consultants, who work directly with agencies every day. They surfaced where bulk step updates fail in practice, how often COLA adjustments occur, and what safeguards HR teams rely on. This feedback helped refine dependencies, tighten the update flow, and ensure the model reflected real operational needs.
“We see agencies updating steps in bulk every year for COLA changes. The current tool makes that risky because there’s no clear preview or way to confirm what’s about to change.”
— Payroll Compliance SME
“Admins expect the system to guide them. If a step update will affect multiple grades or assignments, they want clear warnings and a chance to review it first.”
— Implementation Consultant
“Effective dating is a major pain point. Agencies need to future-date schedule changes for fiscal planning, but the current system forces everything to be done last minute, which creates avoidable errors.”
— Implementation Consultant
Mid Fidelity Refinement and Visual Direction
As feedback refined the underlying logic, we moved into mid-fidelity to shape how users would actually experience the workflow.
- Aligning hierarchy to reduce cognitive load
- Providing clear feedback and error states
- Improving visibility to support oversight
- Reducing the friction of switching between grades and steps
The Final Solution
The new Salary Schedules experience consolidates fragmented compensation structures into a single, scalable model. HR teams can now manage grades, steps, and pay rules in one place with real-time guidance and guardrails.
Before
115+
disconnected schedules per agency
After
4–5
authoritative schedules per agency
Unified Schedule Structure
Legacy schedules only supported a single grade with steps, forcing HR teams to duplicate structures and manage alignment offline.
The redesigned matrix model brings grades and steps together in one unified schedule. Clear hierarchy and inline rules eliminate rework and make the entire structure visible at a glance.
Impact: Faster setup, fewer early mistakes, and clearer alignment across pay levels.
Before
After
Creating Grades with Clarity and Control
Building grades used to require spreadsheets and duplicate data entry. Admins lacked confidence that all pay levels were aligned.
The new guided grade builder includes inline rules, structured hierarchy, and a real-time summary table that updates as grades are created.
Impact: Faster schedule creation and fewer early-stage misconfigurations.
Designing Reliable Step Structures
Step changes in the legacy system risked overwriting history or affecting future pay unintentionally.
The redesigned experience separates step setup from updates and adds effective-date controls, visibility into impacted grades, and safeguards against unintended changes.
Impact: Reduced accidental overrides and fewer step-history errors, with clearer visibility into when and how changes take effect.
Bulk Adjustments with Confidence and Guardrails
Annual COLAs and policy changes often require editing dozens of steps manually, with no preview of impacts.
The new guided update wizard supports percentage or fixed-amount changes, a full preview before publish, and scheduled effective dates for fiscal planning.
Impact: Mass updates are faster and safer. HR teams spend less time on manual checks and more time validating strategic changes.
Neogov AI
AI-Powered Compensation Insights
Explainable, trust-first summaries designed to help HR teams understand complex salary data at a glance.
Learnings
What this project reinforced about designing complex compensation workflows
Structure builds trust
Unified models, clear hierarchy, and guardrails reduced risk by making complex compensation structures understandable and predictable.
Discovery reduces downstream risk
Deep upfront learning around grades, steps, effective dating, and fiscal constraints prevented false assumptions and costly rework later.
Scalable foundations unlock future value
A clean, authoritative schedule model not only improved day-to-day management but also enabled future analytics and AI-powered compensation insights.
Other Projects 👇
Historical Document Import
A new import workflow that gives HR teams a clear, guided way to validate and upload historical documents.
View project →
Julio Ramirez
Home
About
Resume
95% fewer schedules and one source of truth
Public sector agencies were managing over 115 disconnected salary schedules due to system limitations. The redesigned model consolidates these into just a few authoritative schedules per agency that scale with real-world complexity.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Team
Project Manager, Dev Lead, QA
Project Duration
12 weeks
Product Context
Enterprise SaaS for government HR and compensation management
KPI Highlights
60%
Faster salary schedule setup by replacing spreadsheet-driven workflows with a unified, system-managed model
$3M+
Influenced CoreHR bookings through improved scalability and trust in compensation data for complex agencies
30%
Reduction in implementation effort for agencies with complex multi-grade, multi-step compensation structures
The Problem
The legacy system only supported a single grade with steps, making it impossible to represent the multi-grade, multi-step structures agencies rely on.
Project Goal
Create a scalable, trustworthy salary schedule system that supports real-world compensation complexity without increasing risk.
Spreadsheet Dependence
Eliminate spreadsheet-driven setup and duplicated schedules by consolidating grades and steps into a unified system.
Improve Visibility
Make grades, steps, and wage impacts clear at a glance through structured hierarchy and matrix views.
Enable Confident Change
Support individual and bulk updates with previews and guardrails so teams can make changes predictably and safely.
Foundational Learning: Understanding Salary Systems
Before speaking with users, I grounded the work by learning how public agencies structure compensation, which helped avoid false assumptions and sharpen discovery.
From Context to Discovery
With the compliance basics in place, I moved into structured discovery to understand how year-end reporting actually works in practice.
4 weeks research
(2-week sprint)
Week 1
- Recruited participants using Calendly
- Set up the pre-interview survey
- Drafted and finalized the mod guide
Weeks 2–4
- Conducted interviews
- Synthesized early themes
10 participants
HR admins experienced with updating salary ranges, managing steps and scales, and handling mass salary changes
User interviews
- Sessions held over Google Meet (1 hour each)
- Pre-interview survey shaped tailored question paths
- Discovery supported by structured mod guides and iterative adjustments
What the Research Revealed
Over 10 user interviews (HR admins across multiple agencies) validated the core problems:
Structures are too fragmented and rigid
“Right now we have ranges and steps, but we cannot see them together in one place. We end up recreating the whole thing in spreadsheets just to understand it.”
Marynelle Tana, Sacramento HRA
Bulk updates are slow, manual, and risky
“We do COLA updates across all grades and steps. Doing that scale by scale and by hand is error prone. I want a mass update tool with a trial run so we can review changes before we commit.”
Mandy Dixon, City of Trussville
Timing and effective dating create avoidable stress
“Our fiscal year starts October 1. In the past we had a tiny window to key in changes, which was stressful and easy to mess up. Being able to future date salary changes weeks in advance would make this much safer.”
Mandie Quigg, City of Athens
Visibility and controls are limited
“We need a matrix style view and better controls. I want to see grades, steps, and ranges clearly, know who can change what, and have an audit trail so we are not relying on trust and manual spot checks.”
Chris Wiener, City of Asheville
From Insights to Requirements
We reviewed themes with PM, engineering, and implementation experts to align scope and risk. This collaboration produced a shared problem statement and MoSCoW priorities for the first release.
Aligning on the future workflow before design
Before designing screens, I mapped the future-state salary schedule workflow to align product and engineering and reduce risk early.
How might we give HR teams a structured way to manage schedules confidently while reducing the manual steps and uncertainty built into today’s workflows?
Low Fidelity Exploration
Explored interaction patterns, update logic, and validation states that reduce cognitive load without limiting control.
Weekly feedback cycles surfaced engineering constraints early and accelerated alignment.
Testing with Internal Experts
We reviewed early directions with NEOGOV’s implementation consultants, who work directly with agencies every day. They surfaced where bulk step updates fail in practice, how often COLA adjustments occur, and what safeguards HR teams rely on. This feedback helped refine dependencies, tighten the update flow, and ensure the model reflected real operational needs.
“We see agencies updating steps in bulk every year for COLA changes. The current tool makes that risky because there’s no clear preview or way to confirm what’s about to change.”
— Payroll Compliance SME
“Admins expect the system to guide them. If a step update will affect multiple grades or assignments, they want clear warnings and a chance to review it first.”
— Implementation Consultant
“Effective dating is a major pain point. Agencies need to future-date schedule changes for fiscal planning, but the current system forces everything to be done last minute, which creates avoidable errors.”
— Implementation Consultant
Mid Fidelity Refinement and Visual Direction
As feedback refined the underlying logic, we moved into mid-fidelity to shape how users would actually experience the workflow.
- Aligning hierarchy to reduce cognitive load
- Providing clear feedback and error states
- Improving visibility to support oversight
- Reducing the friction of switching between grades and steps
The Final Solution
The new Salary Schedules experience consolidates fragmented compensation structures into a single, scalable model. HR teams can now manage grades, steps, and pay rules in one place with real-time guidance and guardrails.
Before
115+
disconnected schedules per agency
After
4–5
authoritative schedules per agency
Unified Schedule Structure
Legacy schedules only supported a single grade with steps, forcing HR teams to duplicate structures and manage alignment offline.
The redesigned matrix model brings grades and steps together in one unified schedule. Clear hierarchy and inline rules eliminate rework and make the entire structure visible at a glance.
Impact: Faster setup, fewer early mistakes, and clearer alignment across pay levels.
Before
After
Creating Grades with Clarity and Control
Building grades used to require spreadsheets and duplicate data entry. Admins lacked confidence that all pay levels were aligned.
The new guided grade builder includes inline rules, structured hierarchy, and a real-time summary table that updates as grades are created.
Impact: Faster schedule creation and fewer early-stage misconfigurations.
Designing Reliable Step Structures
Step changes in the legacy system risked overwriting history or affecting future pay unintentionally.
The redesigned experience separates step setup from updates and adds effective-date controls, visibility into impacted grades, and safeguards against unintended changes.
Impact: Reduced accidental overrides and fewer step-history errors, with clearer visibility into when and how changes take effect.
Bulk Adjustments with Confidence and Guardrails
Annual COLAs and policy changes often require editing dozens of steps manually, with no preview of impacts.
The new guided update wizard supports percentage or fixed-amount changes, a full preview before publish, and scheduled effective dates for fiscal planning.
Impact: Mass updates are faster and safer. HR teams spend less time on manual checks and more time validating strategic changes.
Neogov AI
AI-Powered Compensation Insights
Explainable, trust-first summaries designed to help HR teams understand complex salary data at a glance.
Learnings
What this project reinforced about designing complex compensation workflows
Structure builds trust
Unified models, clear hierarchy, and guardrails reduced risk by making complex compensation structures understandable and predictable.
Discovery reduces downstream risk
Deep upfront learning around grades, steps, effective dating, and fiscal constraints prevented false assumptions and costly rework later.
Scalable foundations unlock future value
A clean, authoritative schedule model not only improved day-to-day management but also enabled future analytics and AI-powered compensation insights.
Other Projects 👇
Payroll Compliance Hub
The first step toward a unified reporting experience, giving HR teams a faster and more reliable way to manage W-2 filings with confidence.
View project →
Historical Document Import
A new import workflow that gives HR teams a clear, guided way to validate and upload historical documents.
View project →
Julio Ramirez
Home
About
Resume
95% fewer schedules and one source of truth
Public sector agencies were managing over 115 disconnected salary schedules due to system limitations. The redesigned model consolidates these into just a few authoritative schedules per agency that scale with real-world complexity.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Team
Project Manager, Dev Lead, QA
Project Duration
12 weeks
Product Context
Enterprise SaaS for government HR and compensation management
KPI Highlights
60%
Faster salary schedule setup by replacing spreadsheet-driven workflows with a unified, system-managed model
$3M+
Influenced CoreHR bookings through improved scalability and trust in compensation data for complex agencies
30%
Reduction in implementation effort for agencies with complex multi-grade, multi-step compensation structures
The Problem
The legacy system only supported a single grade with steps, making it impossible to represent the multi-grade, multi-step structures agencies rely on.
Project Goal
Create a scalable, trustworthy salary schedule system that supports real-world compensation complexity without increasing risk.
Spreadsheet Dependence
Eliminate spreadsheet-driven setup and duplicated schedules by consolidating grades and steps into a unified system.
Improve Visibility
Make grades, steps, and wage impacts clear at a glance through structured hierarchy and matrix views.
Enable Confident Change
Support individual and bulk updates with previews and guardrails so teams can make changes predictably and safely.
Foundational Learning: Understanding Salary Systems
Before speaking with users, I grounded the work by learning how public agencies structure compensation, which helped avoid false assumptions and sharpen discovery.
From Context to Discovery
With the compliance basics in place, I moved into structured discovery to understand how year-end reporting actually works in practice.
4 weeks research
(2-week sprint)
Week 1
- Recruited participants using Calendly
- Set up the pre-interview survey
- Drafted and finalized the mod guide
Weeks 2–4
- Conducted interviews
- Synthesized early themes
10 participants
HR admins experienced with updating salary ranges, managing steps and scales, and handling mass salary changes
User interviews
- Sessions held over Google Meet (1 hour each)
- Pre-interview survey shaped tailored question paths
- Discovery supported by structured mod guides and iterative adjustments
What the Research Revealed
Over 10 user interviews (HR admins across multiple agencies) validated the core problems:
Structures are too fragmented and rigid
“Right now we have ranges and steps, but we cannot see them together in one place. We end up recreating the whole thing in spreadsheets just to understand it.”
Marynelle Tana, Sacramento HRA
Bulk updates are slow, manual, and risky
“We do COLA updates across all grades and steps. Doing that scale by scale and by hand is error prone. I want a mass update tool with a trial run so we can review changes before we commit.”
Mandy Dixon, City of Trussville
Timing and effective dating create avoidable stress
“Our fiscal year starts October 1. In the past we had a tiny window to key in changes, which was stressful and easy to mess up. Being able to future date salary changes weeks in advance would make this much safer.”
Mandie Quigg, City of Athens
Visibility and controls are limited
“We need a matrix style view and better controls. I want to see grades, steps, and ranges clearly, know who can change what, and have an audit trail so we are not relying on trust and manual spot checks.”
Chris Wiener, City of Asheville
From Insights to Requirements
We reviewed themes with PM, engineering, and implementation experts to align scope and risk. This collaboration produced a shared problem statement and MoSCoW priorities for the first release.
Aligning on the future workflow before design
Before designing screens, I mapped the future-state salary schedule workflow to align product and engineering and reduce risk early.
How might we give HR teams a structured way to manage schedules confidently while reducing the manual steps and uncertainty built into today’s workflows?
Low Fidelity Exploration
Explored interaction patterns, update logic, and validation states that reduce cognitive load without limiting control.
Weekly feedback cycles surfaced engineering constraints early and accelerated alignment.
Testing with Internal Experts
We reviewed early directions with NEOGOV’s implementation consultants, who work directly with agencies every day. They surfaced where bulk step updates fail in practice, how often COLA adjustments occur, and what safeguards HR teams rely on. This feedback helped refine dependencies, tighten the update flow, and ensure the model reflected real operational needs.
“We see agencies updating steps in bulk every year for COLA changes. The current tool makes that risky because there’s no clear preview or way to confirm what’s about to change.”
— Payroll Compliance SME
“Admins expect the system to guide them. If a step update will affect multiple grades or assignments, they want clear warnings and a chance to review it first.”
— Implementation Consultant
“Effective dating is a major pain point. Agencies need to future-date schedule changes for fiscal planning, but the current system forces everything to be done last minute, which creates avoidable errors.”
— Implementation Consultant
Mid Fidelity Refinement and Visual Direction
As feedback refined the underlying logic, we moved into mid-fidelity to shape how users would actually experience the workflow.
- Aligning hierarchy to reduce cognitive load
- Providing clear feedback and error states
- Improving visibility to support oversight
- Reducing the friction of switching between grades and steps
The Final Solution
The new Salary Schedules experience consolidates fragmented compensation structures into a single, scalable model. HR teams can now manage grades, steps, and pay rules in one place with real-time guidance and guardrails.
Before
115+
disconnected schedules per agency
After
4–5
authoritative schedules per agency
Unified Schedule Structure
Legacy schedules only supported a single grade with steps, forcing HR teams to duplicate structures and manage alignment offline.
The redesigned matrix model brings grades and steps together in one unified schedule. Clear hierarchy and inline rules eliminate rework and make the entire structure visible at a glance.
Impact: Faster setup, fewer early mistakes, and clearer alignment across pay levels.
Before
After
Creating Grades with Clarity and Control
Building grades used to require spreadsheets and duplicate data entry. Admins lacked confidence that all pay levels were aligned.
The new guided grade builder includes inline rules, structured hierarchy, and a real-time summary table that updates as grades are created.
Impact: Faster schedule creation and fewer early-stage misconfigurations.
Designing Reliable Step Structures
Step changes in the legacy system risked overwriting history or affecting future pay unintentionally.
The redesigned experience separates step setup from updates and adds effective-date controls, visibility into impacted grades, and safeguards against unintended changes.
Impact: Reduced accidental overrides and fewer step-history errors, with clearer visibility into when and how changes take effect.
Bulk Adjustments with Confidence and Guardrails
Annual COLAs and policy changes often require editing dozens of steps manually, with no preview of impacts.
The new guided update wizard supports percentage or fixed-amount changes, a full preview before publish, and scheduled effective dates for fiscal planning.
Impact: Mass updates are faster and safer. HR teams spend less time on manual checks and more time validating strategic changes.
Neogov AI
AI-Powered Compensation Insights
Explainable, trust-first summaries designed to help HR teams understand complex salary data at a glance.
Learnings
What this project reinforced about designing complex compensation workflows
Structure builds trust
Unified models, clear hierarchy, and guardrails reduced risk by making complex compensation structures understandable and predictable.
Discovery reduces downstream risk
Deep upfront learning around grades, steps, effective dating, and fiscal constraints prevented false assumptions and costly rework later.
Scalable foundations unlock future value
A clean, authoritative schedule model not only improved day-to-day management but also enabled future analytics and AI-powered compensation insights.
Other Projects 👇
Payroll Compliance Hub
The first step toward a unified reporting experience, giving HR teams a faster and more reliable way to manage W-2 filings with confidence.
View project →
Historical Document Import
A new import workflow that gives HR teams a clear, guided way to validate and upload historical documents.
View project →