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Salary: USD 139,000 - 190,000 / annual
Pyka is seeking a Compensation Manager to lead and evolve the company's compensation programs across the US and Brazil. This is a critical individual contributor role reporting to the Head of People, responsible for designing, maintaining, and scaling competitive compensation structures in a fast-paced hardware and aerospace environment.
Key responsibilities include:
• Maintain and iterate on salary bands, job families, and variable pay programs for engineering, manufacturing, flight ops, and G&A roles across US and Brazil operations.
• Manage and optimize compensation management platforms and tools to streamline merit cycles, salary planning, and benchmarking processes.
• Run Pyka's equity compensation programs, including grant guidelines, equity bands, cap table alignment with Finance and Legal, and employee/candidate equity education.
• Conduct ongoing market analysis using tech and hardware compensation data to recommend band adjustments and keep Pyka competitive in each operating market.
• Lead annual compensation reviews, merit increase cycles, and promotion processes in partnership with the Head of People, People Operations, and leadership.
• Ensure compliance with federal, state, local, and international regulations including FLSA, pay transparency laws, and Brazilian labor requirements.
• Create transparent compensation communications and resources to help employees and candidates understand pay decisions and equity value.
• Optionally take ownership of benefits programs including plan design, vendor management, and open enrollment, depending on interests and experience.
This role offers the opportunity to build and expand compensation programs as Pyka scales into new countries, making it ideal for someone who wants to shape people strategy at a growing aerospace company.
REQUIREMENTS:
• 5+ years of dedicated compensation experience, ideally in fast-paced hardware, tech, or aerospace startup environments.
• Proven experience running compensation across multiple countries with US operations as a core market.
• 3+ years of experience with startup equity programs, including grant sizing, market benchmarking, and structured grant frameworks.
• Knowledge of tech/hardware compensation benchmarking databases (Radford, Option Impact, Mercer, or similar).
• Strong analytical proficiency in Google Sheets or Excel for building compensation models, salary bands, and market data analysis.
• Proven understanding of US labor laws and pay transparency mandates (FLSA).
• Exceptional ability to translate complex compensation and equity mechanics into clear, accessible language for employees and candidates across different regions and cultures.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
• Experience managing compensation in Brazil or elsewhere in Latin America.
• Experience implementing or expanding compensation programs in a new country, including benchmarking, band design, and local compliance.
• Direct experience administering or optimizing dedicated compensation planning software (Pave, Pequity, Comprehensive, or similar).
• Familiarity with cross-border equity considerations, global taxation, and international mobility strategies.
• Solid understanding of tax, accounting, and legal considerations surrounding domestic and international stock options, exercise windows, and equity structures.
• Experience building, growing, and leading a compensation team.
• Experience as the first dedicated compensation hire at a company, building programs from the ground up.
