Total Rewards Lead

Surge AI; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Surge AI is seeking a Total Rewards Lead in the United States to own benefits, compensation, and equity administration. You will collaborate with leadership, Finance, Legal, Recruiting, and People Operations to shape programs as the company grows and to build a scalable total rewards function.

This hands-on generalist role invites you to bring your point of view on rewarding people, with room to grow a team around the function and influence across the organization.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in Total Rewards with ownership of benefits, compensation, and equity.
• Experience building programs in high-growth companies, from vendor selection to launch.
• Experience running merit and promotion cycles and designing the process behind them. Equity administration in a private, high-growth company.
• Comfort with a mixed workforce: hourly and salaried, US and international.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to defend recommendations to senior leaders.
• Experience using AI/automation in work to improve processes and scalability.

Responsibilities

• Own our benefits program, including vendors, open enrollment, renewals, and leave, across hourly, salaried, and international employees.
• Document and refine our compensation philosophy, and turn it into bands and guidelines for managers and recruiters.
• Run merit and promotion cycles on a documented process, so only true exceptions reach leadership.
• Partner with Recruiting on competitive offers and current pay ranges, including a career path for contributors moving to employee roles.
• Run pay equity reviews and be our authority on total rewards compliance, including FLSA, ACA, and state mandates.
• Own day-to-day equity administration and build grant, refresh, and promotion guidelines with Finance and Legal.
• Build total rewards workflows and market data reporting in our HRIS and comp tools, using automation and AI to stay lean.

Skills

Total Rewards

Compensation

Equity administration

Merit cycles

FLSA ACA knowledge

Automation

Tools

HRIS

Equity management software

Job description

About Surge AI

Our mission is to raise AGI with the richness of human intelligence - curious, witty, imaginative, and full of unexpected brilliance.

Surge was founded by engineers and researchers who dreamed of building the next generation of AI. Our platform powers the most capable models in the world, in partnership with the AI models you use every day.

At Surge, we believe the path to AGI isn't just about scaling compute - it's about embracing the unlimited ceiling of human intelligence and creativity in the data that shapes these systems. Our platform combines elite human expertise with cutting-edge tools for scalable oversight, from building rich RL environments to conducting rigorous evaluations that go beyond benchmarks. We've run a profitable business from day one without raising venture funding.

The Role

As Total Rewards Lead at Surge, you'll own benefits, compensation, and equity administration. You'll work with leadership, Finance, Legal, Recruiting, and People Operations to keep things running as we grow, and to shape our programs for the company we're becoming.

This role is ideal for a total rewards generalist who likes being hands-on, wants to bring a point of view to how we reward our people, and wants room to grow a team around the function.

What You'll Do

• Own our benefits program, including vendors, open enrollment, renewals, and leave, across hourly, salaried, and international employees.
• Document and refine our compensation philosophy, and turn it into bands and guidelines that managers and recruiters can use.
• Run merit and promotion cycles on a documented process, so only true exceptions reach leadership.
• Partner with Recruiting on competitive offers and current pay ranges, including a consistent path for contributors moving into employee roles.
• Run pay equity reviews and be our authority on total rewards compliance, including FLSA, ACA, and state mandates.
• Own day-to-day equity administration and build grant, refresh, and promotion guidelines with Finance and Legal.
• Build total rewards workflows and market data reporting in our HRIS and comp tools, using automation and AI to stay lean.
  

What We're Looking for

• 5+ years in Total Rewards, with real ownership across benefits, compensation, and equity.
• A track record of building programs in high-growth companies, including a benefits program from vendor selection to launch.
• Experience running merit and promotion cycles and designing the process behind them.Working knowledge of equity administration at a private, high-growth company.
• Comfort with a mixed workforce: hourly and salaried, US and international.
• Strong analytical skills, and you can put a recommendation in front of senior leaders and defend it.
• You use AI and automation in your own work, and you're comfortable building something good enough for now and rebuilding it later.