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Compensation Architecture

Pay philosophy, bands, equity, pay equity audits, and geographic pay — the full comp stack for modern teams.

Start with the pillar Jump to scenarios (5)

The Pillar

Start here — the foundational read.

Pillar article

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.

12 min readIntermediateRead the pillar

Scenarios

5 situations, each with a step-by-step script.

Every scenario is self-contained — open whichever one matches what's on your desk this week.

Advanced14 min

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…

Open scenario

Intermediate14 min

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.

Open scenario

Advanced16 min

Geographic Pay Strategy: The Hardest Comp Decision of the Decade

Single-market, tiered-by-cost-of-labor, location-agnostic — the three doctrines on geographic pay, with the trade-offs HR leaders are wrestling with as remote…

Open scenario

Advanced12 min

Pay-equity audits, end to end

The regression model, the remediation budget, and the legal-privilege structure that makes a pay-equity audit useful instead of discoverable.

Open scenario

Advanced18 min

Headcount Modeling: The Spreadsheet Every CFO Wants and Most HR Teams Don't Build

A clean approach to bottoms-up headcount modeling that survives finance scrutiny — driver-based, scenario-aware, and reconciled to revenue and product plans.

Open scenario

What's next

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