Retirement Specialist – Job Description

Overview
The Retirement Specialist supports Apex by maintaining the accuracy, integrity, and compliance of the company’s 401(k) plan. Reporting into Total Rewards, this role owns the recurring reconciliation of employee data between the payroll system and the retirement plan recordkeeper, and of contributions between the payroll system and the accounting system.

The Retirement Specialist researches each discrepancy to root cause and drives the correction through the team that owns the source data — routing employee data corrections to Employee Services, coordinating deferral and deduction corrections with Payroll, and partnering with Accounting on funding and general ledger variances. The role also supports the plan’s compliance calendar, including annual testing, the plan audit and Form 5500 filing, required participant notices, and correction of operational errors.

Because Apex is a high-growth organization, the Retirement Specialist also plays a key role in onboarding acquired companies onto the plan, ensuring proper eligibility and payroll feed setup, and resolving data issues that arise during integration.

This position requires strong technical knowledge of defined contribution plan administration, excellent reconciliation and problem‑solving skills, and the ability to manage high‑volume detail work against firm regulatory deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Reconcile employee demographic and eligibility data between the payroll/HRIS system and the retirement plan recordkeeper each pay period.
• Research data discrepancies to root cause and determine the correct value and the system of record.
• Submit employee data corrections to Employee Services and track each item through completion and confirmation on the next scheduled feed.
• Coordinate deferral, deduction, and loan repayment corrections with Payroll, including retroactive adjustments.
• Reconcile employee deferrals, loan repayments, and employer contributions between payroll registers, funds remitted to the recordkeeper, and the general ledger.
• Partner with Accounting on funding variances, journal entry requests, and month‑end close support.
• Monitor payroll file feed transmissions, clear rejected and suspended records, and escalate recurring integration failures to the recordkeeper and HRIS team.
• Verify timely remittance of employee contributions and document deposit timing for each pay cycle.
• Monitor contributions against annual IRS deferral, catch‑up, annual additions, and compensation limits, and coordinate payroll stops or refunds as needed.
• Maintain eligibility and plan entry tracking, including rehires, transfers between entities, and long‑term part‑time employees.
• Reconcile forfeiture account activity and calculate employer match true‑ups.
• Support annual compliance testing by preparing and validating the year‑end census and compensation data.
• Coordinate the annual plan audit and the Form 5500 and 8955‑SSA filings, and reconcile trust statements to participant‑level records.
• Prepare and distribute required participant notices and disclosures within regulatory deadlines.
• Calculate and document plan corrections, including corrective contributions and lost earnings, for review by the plan’s advisors.
• Serve as the escalation point for participant questions on enrollment, vesting, loans, hardship withdrawals, distributions, rollovers, beneficiaries, and QDROs.
• Manage day‑to‑day recordkeeper and third‑party administrator relationships and hold vendors accountable to open items and service levels.
• Support retirement plan integration for newly acquired companies, including plan mergers, asset transfers, and prior service crediting.
• Maintain plan documents, amendments, participating employer records, and written desk procedures.
• Maintain a correction log and report reconciliation status and data quality metrics to Total Rewards leadership.

Candidate Requirements

• 3+ years of defined contribution retirement plan administration experience on the plan sponsor, recordkeeper, or third‑party administrator side.
• Demonstrated ability to reconcile employee data and contributions across payroll, recordkeeper, and general ledger systems.
• Strong working knowledge of the ERISA, IRS, and DOL requirements governing 401(k) plans, including contribution limits, eligibility and vesting, timely deposit rules, and required notices.
• Experience with an enterprise HRIS or payroll platform and at least one recordkeeper sponsor portal.
• Advanced Excel skills, including lookup functions, pivot tables, and record‑level comparison of large files.
• Experience supporting annual compliance testing, plan audits, and Form 5500 filings.
• Strong analytical and research skills, with the ability to interpret plan documents and regulatory guidance.
• Ability to manage competing deadlines across a fixed compliance calendar and a recurring payroll cycle.
• Effective communication skills for interacting with Payroll, Accounting, Employee Services, vendors, auditors, and employees.
• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, accounting, finance, or business, or an equivalent combination of education and related experience.
• Experience supporting the retirement plan components of M&A activity preferred.

Preferred Attributes

• QKA, QKC, CEBS, CPC, or CRPS certification preferred but not required.
• Experience administering a plan across multiple EINs or a controlled group of participating employers.
• Hands‑on experience with the IRS and DOL voluntary correction programs, including corrective contribution and lost earnings calculations.
• Familiarity with SECURE 2.0 provisions, including long‑term part‑time eligibility and Roth treatment of catch‑up contributions.
• Comfortable with data tooling beyond Excel, such as Power Query, SQL, or Power BI.
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail and documentation discipline.
• Thorough, compliance‑focused, and reliable under time‑sensitive conditions.
• Treats a recurring exception as a process to fix upstream rather than a variance to rework each cycle.
• Collaborative, service‑oriented, and committed to supporting field and frontline teams.
• Demonstrates strong personal integrity and a high standard of professional ethics.

Location & Travel
Based in Dallas, TX (preferred) or Tampa, FL, with minimal travel

Compensation
Competitive salary

Our Values
At Apex, we embrace a growth mindset, stay scrappy and collaborative, make fact-based decisions, and are committed to elevating skilled trades professionals across our network.