Director, Compensation

CoreWeave•Livingston, NJ

21h•$182,000 - $242,000•Onsite

About The Position

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence. Trusted by leading AI labs, startups, and global enterprises, CoreWeave combines superior infrastructure performance with deep technical expertise to accelerate breakthroughs and turn compute into capability. Founded in 2017, CoreWeave became a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CRWV) in March 2025. Learn more at www.coreweave.com. You'll join CoreWeave's Total Rewards organization, the team responsible for how we pay, incentivize, and retain the people building the infrastructure behind modern AI. We operate at the intersection of People, Finance, Legal, and the business, designing programs that hold up to public-company scrutiny while moving at the speed of a company still in hyper-growth. As Director, Compensation, you'll own executive compensation end to end — including preparation of Compensation Committee materials and executive pay recommendations developed in partnership with our independent compensation consultant. You'll serve as the senior compensation advisor to executive leaders, lead a team supporting offer strategy and exceptions, and drive the retention of critical talent across the company. You'll also own the design, deployment, communication, and governance of broad-based compensation programs at scale. This is a highly visible role with direct exposure to the executive team, and cross-functional leadership.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive compensation experience, including meaningful ownership of executive compensation.
Demonstrated people management experience, with a track record of building, leading, and developing high-performing compensation teams.
Direct experience preparing Compensation Committee and Board materials and partnering with an independent compensation consultant.
Proven experience designing and deploying compensation programs at scale, including the communication, enablement, and approval mechanics that make them stick.
Deep technical fluency across base pay, short- and long-term incentives, and equity vehicles (RSUs, PSUs, options, ESPP), including how they interact with accounting, tax, and disclosure requirements.
Strong cross-functional partnership skills across Finance, Legal, HR Business Partners, and Recruiting, with the credibility to influence senior stakeholders and hold the line when it matters.
Advanced analytical and modeling skills, paired with the judgment to know which analysis actually drives the decision.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to executives and Board members.
Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a high-growth, public company.
Experience supporting a global workforce and multi-country pay programs.
Experience with Workday or comparable HCM and compensation planning platforms.
You're energized by moving between a Board-level pay discussion in the morning and a scrappy offer escalation in the afternoon.
You build programs that scale rather than one-off decisions, and you're comfortable creating structure where none exists yet.
You can make a complex compensation recommendation simple, clear, and persuasive for whoever is in the room.

Responsibilities

Own executive compensation end to end, including program design, benchmarking, pay positioning, incentive plan structure, and annual and off-cycle recommendations for the executive team.
Own the preparation of Compensation Committee materials, partnering with the independent compensation consultant on agendas, market analyses, pay recommendations, plan design proposals, and supporting appendices; manage the annual Committee calendar and pre-read cycle.
Serve as the primary day-to-day partner to the independent compensation consultant, directing scope, data requests, market studies, and analysis so that recommendations are defensible, timely, and aligned to CoreWeave's strategy.
Partner with Legal and Finance on disclosure and governance, including CD&A and proxy compensation tables, pay ratio and pay-versus-performance reporting, Say-on-Pay considerations, and evolving regulatory and proxy advisor expectations.
Advise on incentive plan economics, modeling cost, dilution, share usage, accounting treatment, and performance-metric design in partnership with Finance and Accounting.
Own compensation consulting with executive leaders, acting as the trusted advisor on pay decisions for their organizations — leveling, promotions, market pressure, internal equity, and the compensation implications of organizational design.
Translate complex compensation concepts into clear guidance and crisp recommendations for audiences ranging from front-line managers to the Board.
Partner closely with HR Business Partners and Recruiting to align pay strategy with workforce plans, hiring demand, and the competitive landscape for AI and infrastructure talent.
Lead, coach, and develop a team of compensation professionals who manage job offer review and exception approvals, partnering with Recruiting to deliver competitive offers with speed and consistency.
Set and govern the offer exception framework — thresholds, approval routing, escalation paths, and reporting — so exceptions are principled, tracked, and defensible rather than ad hoc.
Own retention strategy for critical talent, identifying flight risk in partnership with leaders and People teams and designing and executing targeted retention actions, including equity refresh, off-cycle awards, and cash retention programs.
Build the analytics and reporting that give leadership visibility into offer trends, exception rates, competitive positioning, attrition, and program effectiveness.
Own the design and deployment of broad-based compensation programs, including salary structures, geographic differentials, leveling and job architecture, annual and off-cycle merit and promotion cycles, bonus plans, and equity refresh programs.
Run compensation cycles at scale, owning planning calendars, budget modeling, systems configuration and testing, manager enablement, approval workflows, and post-cycle audits.
Lead change management and communication, developing manager toolkits, employee-facing materials, and training so programs land with clarity and buy-in across a rapidly growing global workforce.
Build scalable infrastructure and governance, including compensation systems, controls, documentation, and SOX-aligned processes that support a global public company.
Ensure compliance with federal, state, local, and international pay regulations, including pay transparency and pay equity requirements.