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Salary: USD 175,000 - 260,000 / annual
Waabi, founded by AI visionary Raquel Urtasun, is the leader in Physical AI, unlocking the next era of autonomous transportation with technology powering commercial autonomous trucks and robotaxis. The company is backed by world leaders in AI, automotive, logistics, and deep tech, with offices in Toronto, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh.
As Senior Compensation Manager, you will be the strategic architect of Waabi's compensation strategy and execution. This role directly shapes how the company attracts, rewards, and retains exceptional talent as it scales breakthrough technology into commercial deployment.
Key responsibilities include:
• Anchor compensation decisions in business trajectory: build deep understanding of Waabi's growth path, including headcount plans, commercialization milestones, geographic expansion, and funding outlook, then use this to guide compensation decisions.
• Design the compensation structure of the future: define how base, equity, and variable pay work together to support the business direction. Set long-term philosophy, ranges, and grant guidelines, then lay out the roadmap and sequencing for evolution.
• Own the end-to-end annual compensation cycle: administer the compensation tool and partner with managers and senior leaders to plan outcomes for their teams. Streamline and scale processes, including through AI tools where they add value.
• Lead market benchmarking across all roles and locations: develop deep understanding of job architecture and talent marketplace to complete job matching, survey submissions, and recommend updates to cash and equity ranges.
• Build bottoms-up compensation forecasts with Finance: model spend and equity usage against the business plan. Own modeling and analysis projects to inform decision-making.
• Lead compensation enablement and education: be the single owner of how Waabi teaches compensation—training managers on structure and philosophy, helping employees understand total compensation value and mechanics, equipping recruiting to structure competitive offers, and building employee communications.
• Communicate and advise across company leadership: translate complex compensation topics into clear recommendations and trade-offs for the executive team. Manage preparation of compensation materials for board review.
• Ensure pay equity and compliance: conduct regular reviews and adhere to pay transparency and reporting requirements across the U.S. and Canada.
Requirements:
• Bachelor's degree in Economics, Finance, Business, Human Resources, or related field
• 7+ years of compensation experience, ideally in high-growth technology companies, including owning annual cycles and multi-location benchmarking
• Experience designing compensation philosophy, structures, and programs (salary, variable, and equity)
• Extensive analytical and modeling skills, including building forecasts, plus expertise in benchmarking and survey methodology (Radford, Carta, Pave, etc.)
• Executive presence with clear, confident communication to employees, managers, and senior executives
• Strong collaboration and communication skills
• Sound judgment and discretion with sensitive, confidential information
• Enthusiasm for applying AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) to improve workflows
• Open-minded and collaborative team player
• Passion for self-driving technologies, solving hard problems, and creating innovative solutions
Bonus/Nice to Have:
• Experience with private company compensation planning, including planning through company evolution (revenue, funding, and maturity)
• Experience managing preparation for board review of compensation programs
• Direct experience in high-tech, AI, or autonomous vehicle companies with understanding of how talent marketplace shapes pay
• Hands-on experience using AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) to automate compensation analysis, modeling, or cycle workflows
