Director of Total Rewards
At a glance
Director-level Compensation & Benefits role at Chainguard. Remote, United States · $204,000–$240,000 base.
hrroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Set the compensation and benefits direction, then build programs that can keep pace with company growth
- Lead and develop the Total Rewards team, including the Compensation Manager and Benefits team
- Extend rewards programs into markets such as the UK, Canada, and Germany as international hiring expands
- Review benefits for cost and employee value, redesigning or ending underused programs where appropriate
- Oversee pay bands, market pricing, merit cycles, and scalable processes with the Compensation Manager
What you bring
- Eight to ten years in compensation and benefits, including at least three years managing people
- Experience shaping total rewards strategy, with depth in compensation or benefits and working knowledge of the other
- International rewards experience, especially across EMEA, plus experience with an Employer of Record for overseas staff
- Hands-on ownership of compensation cycles, equity programs, market benchmarking, and pay equity or compliance across jurisdictions
Who this fits
This is a senior people-manager role reporting to the VP overseeing People, suited to someone who has built rewards programs during fast growth and can lead a team. The role is remote in the United States and includes expanding programs across international markets.
From the employer
Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.
Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.
Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.
Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.
Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.
Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.
The role, in a nutshell: We're looking for a Director of Total Rewards to own compensation and benefits strategy as Chainguard scales from a startup into its next phase of growth. This role will lead our Total Rewards team, managing our Compensation Manager and Benefits team, and will be responsible for setting the strategy that keeps us competitive as we compete for talent against some of the biggest names in tech.
You'll partner closely with the business to build a total rewards approach that's both employee-first and cost-effective, while helping us extend our compensation and benefits programs into new countries as we expand internationally. This is a role with real ownership and runway. You'll shape how we think about pay, benefits, and rewards as the company roughly doubles in size over the next several years.
What You'll Do:
- Own and set Chainguard's total rewards strategy across compensation and benefits
- Manage and develop the Total Rewards team
- Lead our approach to global compensation and benefits strategy as we expand into new international markets, including the UK, Canada, and Germany, with more countries to follow
- Partner with the business to balance employee experience with cost efficiency, identifying legacy programs or underutilized benefits that can be redesigned or retired without eroding our benefits-rich culture
- Stay ahead of market trends in compensation and benefits, helping Chainguard remain competitive for talent against major players in the market
- Oversee banding, market pricing, and merit cycles, in partnership with the Compensation Manager
- Advise leadership on comp and benefits strategy tied to headcount growth and cost management as the company scales
- Build scalable total rewards processes as the team and company grow
What We're Looking For:
- 8-10 years of progressive compensation and benefits experience, including 3+ years in a management capacity.
- Proven experience setting total rewards strategy, with a strong background in either compensation or benefits (and working knowledge of the other)
- Experience scaling total rewards programs at a high-growth SaaS or startup company, ideally through a growth stage comparable to scaling from roughly 1,000 to 3,000+ employees
- End-to-end experience running compensation cycles — job architecture, market pricing, merit/promotion planning, and bonus design
- Experience with equity program design and administration, including cap table fluency (Carta, Shareworks, or similar)
- Strong command of market pricing and benchmarking tools (Radford, Pave, Mercer, or similar)
- International experience required, particularly across EMEA; experience in Japan, Singapore, or South America is a strong plus
- Experience partnering with or managing an Employer of Record (EOR) for international employees
- Working knowledge of pay equity and compliance considerations across multi-state and international jurisdictions
- Strong track record managing and developing a team
- Comfort operating with some ambiguity and building process where it doesn't yet exist
- Relevant experience is valued over certifications
- This is a people-manager role reporting into the VP overseeing People
Why This Role: Chainguard is scaling quickly, both domestically and internationally, and our total rewards strategy needs to scale with it. This role sits at the center of that work — helping us stay a benefits-rich, employee-first company while making smart, sustainable decisions about where and how we invest.
You'll have the opportunity to shape compensation and benefits strategy across a rapidly growing, increasingly global organization, with real support to build the team and programs needed to get there.
About Us
We live and breathe our company values:
- We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
- We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
- We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
- We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.
A few of the benefits we offer:
- Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
- Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
- 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
- ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
- 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.
If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.
Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.
By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.
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