Databricks

Sr. Compensation Manager, R&D

Databricks$217K — $299K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of experience in compensation strategy and execution
  • Strong knowledge of compensation frameworks and job architecture
  • Exceptional analytical skills in data synthesis and market pricing
  • Experience with competitive tech compensation practices
  • Ability to balance compensation knowledge with business solutions

Responsibilities

  • Develop compensation models for R&D talent
  • Manage compensation processes throughout the employee lifecycle
  • Create and implement compensation programs and frameworks
  • Collaborate with leadership to address business needs
  • Act as an advisor in sensitive compensation decisions

Benefits

  • Comprehensive benefits package
  • Opportunities for performance bonuses and equity participation
  • Supportive and inclusive company culture
  • Focus on employee well-being with diverse perks
  • Career growth and professional development opportunities
Full Job Description
GAQ127R143

Reporting to the Director of Compensation, you will bridge deep quantitative analysis with high-stakes executive advisory, ensuring our compensation philosophy reinforces an owner mindset across our core technology and product teams.

The Impact you will have:

Scope of the role
• R&D Solutioning & Strategic Advisory (40%): Co-create custom incentive models, specialized technical compensation structures, and high-impact retention frameworks tailored specifically to hyper-competitive R&D skill sets.
• Lifecycle Compensation Management (30%): Own the end-to-end execution of merit, refresh equity, and promotion cycles across global engineering cohorts, serving as the primary advisor for strategic executive hires and key retention scenarios. Build and leverage automation and AI solutions to efficiently support complex and nuanced cases.
• Enterprise Framework Development (30%): Scale Databricks' global compensation structure, refining market pricing models, pay-for-performance mechanics, and equity strategies.

What you'll bring

R&D Compensation Mastery
• Technical Domain Depth: Deep understanding of the competitive landscape for core engineering, infrastructure, and AI/ML talent-including aggressive startup equity structures, tech-sector refresh strategies, and specialized software compensation models.
• First-Principles Thinking: Ability to look beyond standard survey data to build custom, business-aligned compensation solutions from scratch.
• Advanced Analytics: Mastery of Excel/Google Sheets required. Hands-on experience with SQL, Python, Tableau, or AI-driven analytics tools is a strong plus.

Executive Partnership & Scale
• Trusted Advisory: Confidence and credibility to partner directly with technical founders and executive leadership on high-stakes, sensitive pay decisions, M&A integrations, and critical offers.
• Scalable Operations: Experience building scalable compensation solutions and operationalizing comp programs across complex systems without sacrificing speed or precision.

Pay Range Transparency

Databricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.

Zone 1 Pay Range

$217,800-$299,550 USD

BenefitsAt Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region click here.

About Databricks

Databricks is a unified analytics platform that provides data engineering, collaborative data science, and machine learning capabilities. The company was founded in 2013 by the original creators of Apache Spark, a popular open-source big data processing engine. Databricks provides a cloud-based platform that allows data teams to collaborate and build data pipelines, run machine learning models, and perform advanced analytics. The company has raised over $1 billion in funding and is valued at $38 billion as of November 2021.
Learn more about Databricks
Size
2,000 employees
Industry
Founded
2013

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