Fireworks AI→
Compensation Partner at Fireworks AI in San Mateo
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.