How to hire a functional lead

How to hire a functional lead, step by step

Here's a step-by-step functional lead hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a functional lead job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new functional lead
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a functional lead do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a functional lead, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A functional lead's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, functional leads from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents functional lead salaries for various positions.

   Type of Functional Lead	Description	Hourly rate
   Functional Lead	Computer systems analysts study an organization’s current computer systems and procedures and design information systems solutions to help the organization operate more efficiently and effectively. They bring business and information technology (IT) together by understanding the needs and limitations of both.	$40-71
   Programmer Analyst	A programmer analyst is responsible for monitoring database performance and software applications, performing basic troubleshooting, and improving program operations as needed. Programmer analysts' duties also include making adjustments on the system based on client's specifications, creating reports for any updates and new system procedures, designing specific technology solutions to improve the business operations, and performing necessary code adjustments... Show more	$26-43
   Oracle Consultant	An Oracle consultant specializes in developing strategies to optimize a company's Oracle software projects, ensuring efficiency and smooth workflow. Their responsibilities often revolve around conducting research and analysis to identify the best practices, gathering and analyzing data to determine the strengths and weaknesses of existing systems, and implementing solutions in problem areas... Show more	$33-60

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • ERP
   • Client Facing
   • Enterprise Solutions
   • Gl
   • Business Process
   • Gap Analysis
   • Enterprise Resource Planning
   • User Training
   • SLA
   • Java
   • Strong Analytical
   • FA
   • Prototyping
   • Solution Design

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage the FI project plan and training.
   • Direct and manage subject matter expert (SME) activity during analysis and content development.
   • Lead functional staff in planning stage of system migration from client-server architecture to web base environment via ResQSoft conversion tool.
   • Monitor all prototyping and user acceptance testing.
   • Work on AppWorx, which is a job scheduling tool integrate with EBS.
   • Help several financial industry clients in implementation of FAH and core EBS financial modules.

   More functional lead duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the functional lead job description is a good way to get more applicants. A functional lead salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a functional lead in Missouri may be lower than in California, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level functional lead. Additionally, a functional lead with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average functional lead salary

   $113,422yearly

   $54.53 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level functional lead salary

   $85,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 17, 2025

   Average functional lead salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	California	$141,734	$68
   2	Oregon	$125,626	$60
   3	Massachusetts	$114,471	$55
   4	Arizona	$108,577	$52
   5	Virginia	$108,396	$52
   6	Texas	$108,030	$52
   7	Maryland	$105,563	$51
   8	Ohio	$105,420	$51
   9	Illinois	$104,462	$50
   10	Washington	$104,337	$50
   11	Georgia	$103,711	$50
   12	New York	$103,284	$50
   13	Pennsylvania	$102,194	$49
   14	Connecticut	$101,536	$49
   15	Minnesota	$100,822	$48
   16	Florida	$100,392	$48
   17	Iowa	$99,816	$48
   18	Arkansas	$98,797	$48
   19	North Carolina	$97,902	$47
   20	Wisconsin	$97,182	$47

   Average functional lead salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Airbnb	$173,542	$83.43
   2	Stitch Fix	$157,768	$75.85	2
   3	Apple	$157,307	$75.63	4
   4	Foundation Medicine	$154,097	$74.09
   5	Netflix	$153,575	$73.83
   6	Dropbox	$150,439	$72.33
   7	Riot Games	$142,365	$68.44
   8	Rivian	$141,900	$68.22
   9	Citi	$140,837	$67.71	1
   10	Walgreens	$140,332	$67.47	35
   11	Adobe	$138,129	$66.41	3
   12	JPMorgan Chase & Co.	$137,826	$66.26	3
   13	Chobani	$137,313	$66.02
   14	Deutsche Bank	$135,729	$65.25	1
   15	Ecolab	$134,577	$64.70	10
   16	The Home Depot	$132,139	$63.53	11
   17	Kelly Services	$130,031	$62.51	3
   18	Tesla	$130,011	$62.51
   19	Avanade	$129,984	$62.49	4
   20	BioMarin	$129,380	$62.20	3

4. Writing a functional lead job description

   A job description for a functional lead role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a functional lead job description:

   Functional lead job description example

   Power up your career in the dynamic energy industry! UGI Corporation is an international energy distribution and services company that provides superior service in delivering a range of energy products. By operating as a best-in-class service provider, offering a great place to work, serving our communities and delivering value to investors, we aim to positively impact the lives of our shareholders, employees, customers and communities.
   UGI Corporation (NYSE: UGI) is a holding company that distributes and markets energy products and services through our subsidiaries and the company’s common stock is a balanced growth and income investment. UGI Corporation has paid common dividends for more than 135 consecutive years. In addition to a challenging career and competitive compensation, our employees enjoy: Generous and Family-friendly Health & Welfare Benefits Including: • Medical, Vision, and Dental Plans
   • Optional Health Savings Account
   • Optional Dependent Care Savings Account
   • Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave
   • Prescription Coverage
   • Life Insurance
   • Disability Insurance
   • Work from home policy
   • Employee Assistance Program Additional Benefits Include: • 401K with a generous company match
   • Tuition Reimbursement
   • Assistance with Professional Credentialing
   • Adoption Assistance
   • Pet Insurance
   • Referral Bonuses
   • Employee Discount Programs Job Summary: The Payroll Functional Analyst is the subject matter expert of the EC Payroll module in our global SAP SuccessFactors Human Capital Management (HCM) instance. This includes business process support, business process design, and guiding functional change governance. The Payroll Functional Analyst will use their knowledge of Payroll business practices to gather and document functional requirements and assist with development, testing, and deployment of technical solutions to business challenges. Job Responsibilities: Expert in EC Payroll system functionality, capabilities and data. Able to identify and promote standard system solutions for defined business requirements. Work with the Payroll Manager and team to analyze and solve complex business problems. Understands objectives and recommends solutions. Manages the ServiceNow (support) and ALM (change/defect) ticket queues. Overall responsibility of making sure ticket statuses are updated and reflect current activity. Works with the business to prioritize defects and change requests Acts as the point of contact between the Business and Technical team. Translates business requirements into functional/technical requirements. Assigns work to the technical team and has ultimate responsibility for completion and delivery per the company’s standard Change Management and Audit requirements. Responsible for escalating questions or concerns including issues/risks to meeting deadlines or work prioritization. Communicates status updates to stakeholders. Support large projects across the enterprise in area of expertise; with the ability to expand knowledge into new areas of functionality Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: SuccessFactors Employee Central experience a plus Experience with HR ticketing solutions like ServiceNow Expert level knowledge of SAP Payroll Platform Strong leadership skills and commitment to excellence Strong written and oral communication skills; ability to take complex processes and translate business requirements into technical requirements Strong problem solving and decision-making abilities Team player with a positive attitude Proficient computer skills (Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point) Education and Experience: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience 5+ years of experience administering SuccessFactors EC Payroll or SAP Payroll On-Premise. 5+ years of experience with Payroll systems All offers of employment are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check and drug screen, subject to applicable laws and regulations. UGI Corporation is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The company maintains and observes employment policies that do not discriminate against any person because of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, age, ancestry and any other basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. This applies to recruiting, hiring, training, compensation, overtime, job classifications, work assignments, promotions, demotions, layoffs, terminations, transfers, and all other conditions of employment.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right functional lead for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your functional lead job on Zippia to find and recruit functional lead candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   To successfully recruit functional leads, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a functional lead applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new functional lead

   Once you've found the functional lead candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new functional lead. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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