Compensation manager

The posting, as Watershed wrote it

ABOUT WATERSHED

Watershed https://watershed.com/ is the enterprise sustainability platform. Companies like Airbnb, Carlyle Group, FedEx, Visa, and Dr. Martens use Watershed to manage climate and ESG data, produce audit-ready metrics for voluntary and regulatory reporting including CSRD, and drive real decarbonization. We are looking for team members who love product-building, want to work hard at a mission-oriented startup, and will collaborate with us in shaping the culture of a growing team.

We have offices in San Francisco, New York, Denver, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Mexico City, and remote team members across the US and Europe. We hope that you'll be interested in joining us!

THE ROLE

You’ll lead Watershed’s global compensation program. You’ll be our sole dedicated compensation team member, taking ownership of an established, increasingly complex program across the U.S., EMEA, Australia, and Mexico City. This is a hands-on individual contributor role reporting to our Head of People: you’ll build and check the models, validate market benchmarks, run compensation planning, and help employees understand their pay. You’ll bring sound judgment to decisions that balance competitiveness, performance, and financial discipline.

Reporting to the Head of People, you’ll partner closely with Finance, People Business Partners, Recruiting, People Operations, and business leaders. You’ll help shape compensation strategy through analysis and recommendations to the Head of People and founders. You’ll independently own execution of our programs including budgeting, planning, education and rollout.

A major focus will be our compensation tools and planning workflows. You’ll help us move away from manual work toward reliable data, well-tested systems, and a better experience for employees as well as the people making and communicating compensation outcomes.

YOU WILL

• Own and evolve compensation planning and tools. Lead the development and continuous improvement of planning tools, models, and workflows to strengthen reliability, usability, and efficiency. Identify opportunities to build new capabilities, reduce manual work, and recommend tools and process improvements that support the company’s evolving compensation needs.
• Run compensation cycles end to end. Manage timelines, eligibility, cash and equity modeling, budget tracking, approvals, data validation, and final handoffs. Partner with Finance and People Operations to ensure approved decisions are implemented accurately and on time.
• Lead global benchmarking. Validate market data and job matches, manage survey participation, and maintain compensation ranges across functions and geographies. Bring judgment to imperfect data, document assumptions, and flag where our benchmarks no longer reflect the talent markets we compete in.
• Build compensation understanding. Help employees understand their compensation and equity, equip managers to communicate decisions, and enable recru

[…]
o turn complex compensation concepts into clear employee education, manager guidance, and leadership recommendations.

• Practical fluency with AI tools and prompt engineering and a willingness to use them to improve analysis, documentation, and recurring workflows. You know how to validate outputs and protect sensitive compensation data.
• Strong project management, attention to detail, and discretion. You can prioritize independently, follow through, and deliver work that people trust.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a genuine interest in being a hands-on, sole compensation specialist with strong cross-functional partners.

Must be willing to work from an office 4 days per week (except for remote roles)

Watershed has hub offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Mexico City and satellite offices in Denver, Sydney, Paris, and Berlin. Where we have offices, employees are expected to be in office for 4 days per week. Certain jobs are open to being remote and will be specifically noted on the jobs page and in the job description if so.

What’s the interview process like?

It starts the same for every candidate: getting to know the team members through 1 to 2 conversations about Watershed, your experience, and your interests. Next steps can vary by role, but usual next steps are a skill or experience interview (e.g. a coding interview for an engineer, a portfolio review for a designer, deeper experience call for other roles) which leads to a virtual or in person interview panel. We prioritize transparency and lack of surprise throughout the process.

What if I need accommodations for my interview?

At Watershed, we are dedicated to ensuring an inclusive recruitment process. We provide reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities, long-term conditions, mental health needs, religious observances, neurodivergence, or pregnancy-related support requirements. If you need assistance during your process, please contact your recruiter.