Compensation Partner

Fireworks; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Fireworks is seeking its first dedicated Compensation Partner to translate our compensation philosophy into practice across a fast-growing org. You’ll own compensation data, bands, system implementations, and equity framework, partnering with Finance and HRBPs to ensure pay decisions are informed and consistent.

You’ll lead market benchmarking, design the end-to-end review cycle, develop manager tools, and build scalable processes that stay rigorous as we scale while aligning benefits and pay

Qualifications

• 6+ years of progressive compensation experience in a fast-growing company.
• Direct experience with equity compensation (options/RSUs) and finance collaboration.
• Strong analytical skills with data-driven recommendations.
• Hands-on with compensation processes, bands, and review cycles.
• Experience partnering with HRBPs, Finance, and People Ops as stakeholders.
• Excellent written communication for executives to managers.

Responsibilities

• Translate compensation philosophy into guardrails, bands, and decision frameworks.
• Own compensation data, systems, and governance with HRIS/Workday.
• Design and manage end-to-end compensation review cycle.
• Maintain job architecture and salary bands; conduct market benchmarking.
• Partner with Finance on equity framework and modeling.
• Provide manager tools and guidance to ensure consistency.

Skills

Equity compensation knowledge

Advanced compensation analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

HRIS/Workday experience

Excellent written communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in HR/Business/Compensation

SHRM or related certification

Tools

Workday

Carta Total Comp

Radford

Excel

Job description

About Us:

Fireworks is the platform for specialized intelligence, enabling companies to build, train, and serve AI models tailored to their own data, workflows, and products. Founded by the team behind PyTorch and backed by AMD, Atreides, Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital, and TCV, Fireworks powers production AI with hundreds of state-of-the-art open models across text, image, embedding, audio, and multimodal workloads. Today, Fireworks is a Series D company valued at $17.5 billion, bringing together an ambitious, collaborative team that's building the future of enterprise AI.

About the Role

Compensation touches nearly every decision we make about talent. We’re hiring our first dedicated Compensation Partner – the person responsible for translating our compensation philosophy into practice.

You’ll build the connective tissue between what we believe about pay and how pay decisions actually get made across a fast-growing org. That means bringing rigor to how we benchmark, review, and adjust compensation, and building the systems and processes that let that rigor hold as we scale. You’ll own all of it hands‑on – running the market research, building the review cycle, keeping the data clean, and being the person HRBPs and leaders turn to when a pay question needs a real answer.

You’ll also partner closely with Finance to build out our equity framework, bringing a compensation lens to a conversation that’s often driven by Finance alone.

What You’ll Do

Translate our compensation philosophy into clear strategy and practice

• Take our existing compensation philosophy and turn it into practical guardrails, bands, and decision frameworks that managers and HRBPs can actually use

• Regularly check that our real‑world pay practices stay aligned with our philosophy, flagging and correcting drift as we grow

• Keep our compensation posture competitive and agile – able to respond to market shifts rather than only revisiting pay once a year

Maintain and evolve our compensation bands

• Own our job architecture and salary bands, keeping them current as roles, levels, and the market evolve

• Run ongoing market research and benchmarking (survey data, competitive intelligence) to ensure our bands remain competitive

• Recommend band adjustments proactively, rather than waiting for a leader or HRBP to flag a problem

Own compensation data, analysis, and systems

• Maintain accurate compensation data and be the source of truth Finance, People Ops, and HRBPs rely on

• Own compensation system implementation and administration (e.g., HRIS/Workday compensation modules), keeping the process scalable as headcount grows

• Turn compensation data into clear analysis and recommendations for leadership — pay equity, competitiveness, spend trends

Build and run our compensation review program

• Design and own the end‑to‑end compensation review cycle — timing, guardrails, manager tools, and calibration approach

• Partner with HRBPs to roll the program out across their orgs, adapting company‑level design to what actually works for each function

• Build the manager‑facing tools and guidance that keep pay decisions consistent and defensible across teams

Participate in designing our benefits strategy

• Own the strategic direction of our benefits program across geographies — what we offer, how it evolves, and how it stays competitive and cost‑effective as we scale

• Partner with People Ops, who continue to own day‑to‑day benefits administration, to ensure strategy and execution stay connected

• Evolve the benefits framework as we expand into new locations or hit new headcount milestones

Partner with Finance on equity

• Bring strong familiarity with equity compensation design (options, RSUs, or similar) to partner closely with Finance in building out a robust equity framework

• Support equity‑related modeling, guidelines, and decision‑making as part of the broader compensation strategy

• Help ensure equity practices stay consistent with our overall compensation philosophy

Be the go‑to comp expert for HRBPs and leaders

• Act as subject matter expert on pay decisions, offer approvals, and job evaluations

• Educate and enable HRBPs and managers so they can confidently make and explain compensation decisions within our frameworks

What We’re Looking For

• 6+ years of progressive compensation experience, ideally including time maintaining and evolving comp programs (bands, review cycles, market benchmarking) in a fast‑growing company

• Direct experience with equity compensation (options, RSUs, or similar) and comfort partnering with Finance on equity framework design

• Strong analytical foundation: comfortable with market data, compensation modeling, and translating data into clear recommendations

• A hands‑on, do‑er mindset — comfortable owning the process and the details, not just setting direction for others to execute

• Experience partnering with HRBPs, Finance, and People Ops as equal stakeholders

• Excellent written communication — able to explain compensation mechanics clearly to audiences ranging from executives to first‑time managers

• Familiarity with relevant compensation systems and survey data sources (e.g., Workday, Radford, Pave, Carta Total Comp)

Nice to have

• Experience with sales/GTM compensation plan design

• Experience carrying a benefits program through international or multi‑geography expansion

• Experience owning or heavily involved in benefits strategy (not just administration)

• Experience building a compensation review cycle in tandem with a performance management program

Why Fireworks?

• Solve Hard Problems: Tackle challenges at the forefront of AI infrastructure, from low‑latency inference to scalable model serving.

• Build What’s Next: Work with bleeding‑edge technology that impacts how businesses and developers harness AI globally.

• Ownership & Impact: Join a fast‑growing, passionate team where your work directly shapes the future of AI—no bureaucracy, just results.

• Learn from the Best: Collaborate with world‑class engineers and AI researchers who thrive on curiosity and innovation.

Fireworks AI is an equal‑opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all innovators.