Compensation Manager

Kikoff•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

Kikoff is looking for a Compensation Manager to own our cash and equity programs end-to-end as we scale toward IPO. You'll be the in-house comp expert who turns our compensation philosophy into the systems that run underneath every offer, merit cycle, promotion, and equity refresh — making sure the bands hold up, the grants land where they should, and the data is clean enough to defend to a comp committee. This role reports to the VP of People and works closely with People Analytics, the stock admin team on Carta, Recruiting on offers, Finance on comp budgets, and HRBPs on individual cases. This is a senior individual contributor role — no direct reports today — with a path to build a team as the function scales.

Requirements

5+ years of compensation experience at a tech company, including direct ownership of merit cycle administration, salary band maintenance, and equity grant operations
Hands-on experience with Radford or another major tech comp survey, including job matching, market analysis, and band construction
Strong fluency with equity mechanics — vesting schedules, refresh design, grant tables, ISO/NSO/RSU treatment, and the Carta workflows that operationalize all of it
Strong analytical skills with deep Excel/Sheets fluency, comfort in HRIS comp modules, and ideally hands-on experience with Pave, Lattice, or comparable tooling
Familiarity with pay transparency requirements across CO, NY, CA, and other jurisdictions
A pragmatic communicator who can translate comp logic for non-comp audiences — managers building business cases, candidates negotiating offers, Managerership weighing trade-offs
Strong judgment on when to follow the framework and when an exception is warranted; equally strong instinct for when an exception should become a framework change instead
Comfortable in a lean environment where you'll partner with People Analytics, Recruiting, and Finance rather than have a team of your own — and where you're expected to do the work yourself rather than hand it off to consultants

Nice To Haves

Pre-IPO experience is a strong plus, particularly with equity refresh redesign, ESPP or PSU plan design, or supporting NEO disclosure prep

Responsibilities

Maintain Kikoff's salary structure end-to-end: Radford-benchmarked bands by job and level, geographic differentials, annual market refreshes, and the job matching that connects our roles to the underlying survey data
Run the annual merit and promotion cycle — proration logic, manager allocation tools, calibration support, and final letter generation — and handle out-of-cycle adjustments through the year
Execute the equity program day-to-day: new hire grant recommendations, refresh administration on our frontloaded vesting framework, grant table maintenance, and Carta operations
Build comp materials and competitive intelligence for offer construction with Recruiting, including total compensation views for senior candidates
Own pay transparency and compliance — pay range posting requirements (CO, NY, CA, and other jurisdictions), FLSA classification, and pay equity audits
Drive IPO readiness work end-to-end in partnership with the VP of People — NEO benchmarking analysis, CD&A prep, ESPP and PSU plan design, and equity education for the broader team
Build and maintain comp dashboards and reporting in partnership with People Analytics — burn rate, dilution, comp ratio against bands, pay equity, and refresh scenarios
Serve as the comp expert on individual cases for HRBPs, recruiters, and managers — including the harder conversations where the framework has to drive the answer
Partner with Finance on comp accruals, merit pool sizing, and budget reconciliation