Compensation & Benefits
Pay philosophy, bands, transparency, equity basics, and pay equity audits in 30 days.
For: HR leads, founders
Writing a Compensation Philosophy You Can Defend
How to set pay targets, bands, transparency, and review cadence — before you have to negotiate a single offer.
Equity for Founders and Employees: A Working Primer
Options vs RSUs, vesting, cliffs, refreshes, exercise windows, dilution, and the questions every operator should be able to answer about their own grant.
Pay Equity Audit in 30 Days: A Repeatable Methodology
Pay equity audits are increasingly mandatory (EU Pay Transparency Directive, UK Gender Pay Gap, US state laws). This is a 30-day, defensible methodology using…
Compensation bands that survive scrutiny
The structural choices behind a defensible band system — band width, midpoint spacing, geographic differentials, and the maintenance discipline that prevents…
Equity refresh and vesting design — the lever most startups misuse
Why initial grants stop motivating after year 2, how mature equity programs design refresh, and the vesting structures the best comp teams are converging on.
Annual merit cycle mechanics — running it without breaking trust
The four-month timeline, the calibration mechanics, the budget-allocation choices, and the communication architecture that determines whether your merit cycle…
Variable pay and bonus plan design — what behavior are you actually buying?
Bonus plans are behavioral instruments. The choice between individual, team, and company performance pools tells employees what you actually value — usually…
Real comp bands: a Series A in Kathmandu, line by line
A complete cash + equity band table for a 42-person Series A engineering org in Kathmandu — what we pay, why, and what we'd change knowing what we know now.
The end-to-end compensation review cycle: a 12-week operating manual
From budget approval to letter delivery, the comp cycle is 12 weeks of dependencies. Here's the week-by-week playbook with the four roles (Finance, Comp…
Merit, COLA, and market: three pools, three formulas, and why mixing them breaks the cycle
Merit is a reward, COLA is an adjustment, market is a correction. Most teams mash them together and end up paying high performers below market while inflating…
RSUs vs stock options: what employees actually need to know
Two of the most common equity instruments, two completely different risk profiles. Here's the plain-English explainer with tax mechanics, real numbers, and…
Equity refresh: designing the program that prevents the cliff
Without refresh, every employee hits a year-3 cliff where their new-hire grant runs out and the offer they could get elsewhere makes them leave.
The counter-offer playbook: when to make one, when to walk away
Counter-offers are emotional, expensive, and often regretted. Here's the decision framework — when a counter is worth it, what it should include, and how to…
Salary negotiation, both sides of the table: scripts, anchors, and what 'fair' really means
Whether you're hiring or being hired, salary negotiation runs on the same five mechanics. Here's the playbook from both sides — anchors, ranges, scripts, and…
Compensation 101: bands, philosophy, and why 'we'll figure it out per person' doesn't scale
If you're making pay decisions person-by-person, you're building debt you'll repay with interest. Here's the beginner's tour of comp — philosophy, bands…
Salary negotiation from HR's seat: a step-by-step playbook to close offers cleanly
Most HR teams handle salary negotiation reactively — candidate pushes, recruiter folds, comp band breaks, internal equity erodes.