Compensation Architect - Total Rewards

Obsidian; Toronto; On-site; CAD 69,000 - 276,000; Full time

Job summary

Mercor is building its compensation and equity foundation from scratch. We seek Total Rewards practitioners with depth in compensation design or equity program management.

The role covers salary bands, annual cycles, and equity-related governance, including 409A valuations and model-driven comms to explain value to employees and candidates. What you bring: proven experience in designing incentive structures and communicating complex compensation concepts to executive teams.

Qualifications

• Experience designing salary bands, leveling frameworks, and job architecture.
• Proven track record managing annual compensation cycles: merit, promotions, bonus programs, equity refresh.
• Experience benchmarking and defending pay structures to executives.
• Ability to design simple, credible incentive structures.

Responsibilities

• Design compensation architecture including salary bands and job levels.
• Manage equity programs: grants, vesting structures, and refresh philosophy.
• Run benchmarking and defend total rewards decisions to leadership.
• Develop clear models and communications to explain equity value to candidates and employees.

Job description

Mercor's People team is building its compensation and equity foundation from scratch. We want to think it through with people who have done it before.

We're looking for Total Rewards practitioners with depth in one or both of the following. Either one on its own is enough.

Compensation design & architecture

• Built salary bands, leveling frameworks, and job architecture from the ground up
• Owned an annual compensation cycle: merit planning, promotion decisions, bonus programs, equity refresh
• Benchmarked against a peer set you then had to defend to a skeptical exec team
• Designed incentive structures that were simple, credible, and changed behavior

Equity program management

• Designed option and RSU programs: grant guidelines, pool planning, vesting structures, refresh philosophy
• Worked through 409A valuations, plan governance, and grant administration at a venture-backed company
• Built the modeling and communication that lets candidates and employees understand what their equity is worth

Those two are what we screen on. Nothing below is required. If you have the whole Total Rewards picture, say so.

Also valuable

• Compensation philosophy, benchmarking methodology, pay equity and pay transparency
• Compensation design for a global or contractor workforce at scale
• Benefits program design, HRIS and compensation tooling
• Executive compensation, plan governance, or equity through IPO readiness

Context

Mercor is a Series C company at a $10B valuation, scaling from roughly 500 employees, with a large global contractor network alongside a growing full-time workforce. Nothing is settled yet: what the compensation philosophy should be, how levels map across very different functions, how equity gets granted and explained.

How this works

Applying starts with a short screen. If your background fits, we'll invite you to a paid conversation about a live question we're facing. You're paid for it whether or not anything follows.

Rate is $50-$200/hr depending on depth of experience. Engagements run a few hours at a time, scoped to one question.

We review every submission.