About you:
Merlin is building the autonomy stack that will define the next generation of aerospace, defense, and mobility. As we scale and prepare for private-to-public readiness, we need a Vice President of Total Rewards who is both a strategist and a builder — someone who can design the vision and execute the work required to bring it to life.
This is not a traditional VP role with layers of infrastructure already in place. It is a foundational leadership role, ideal for someone who can move fluidly between long-range strategic design and hands-on execution. You will influence the culture, guide how we position ourselves in the talent market, and set principles that define what it feels like to work at Merlin — while also operating as the primary architect and executor of our rewards programs.
If you thrive in a builder environment, enjoy both designing the blueprint and constructing the scaffolding, and want to create a total rewards function that can scale to public-company standards, this is that opportunity.
Responsibilities:
Compensation & Equity — Strategy + Execution:
Define and continually evolve Merlin’s compensation philosophy, ensuring it aligns with our culture, talent strategy, and business trajectory.
Architect our job architecture, leveling frameworks, and salary bands, and personally build the underlying systems and tools that bring them to life.
Own the entire annual compensation cycle — modeling scenarios, building tools, guiding calibration, creating communications, and ensuring leaders are prepared to make thoughtful, data-driven decisions.
Lead equity strategy and administration (options, RSUs, forecasting, modeling), partnering with Finance and Legal on governance, audits, and employee education.
Prepare compensation and equity programs for audit-ready public-company compliance, ensuring every workflow stands up to external scrutiny.
Benefits — Strategic Design + Hands-On Ownership:
Develop Merlin’s benefits philosophy and roadmap, aligning offerings to the needs of our workforce.
Manage broker and vendor relationships while also doing the day-to-day work: evaluating plans, executing renewals, supporting employees, and driving benefit communications.
Analytics, Infrastructure & Compliance:
Build compensation and rewards dashboards, templates, models, and reporting frameworks from the ground up.
Maintain exceptional data hygiene across our HRIS (Rippling), equity platform, and compensation systems.
Ensure compliance with pay transparency requirements, labor laws, equity regulations, and IPO-readiness standards.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence:
Partner deeply with Finance, Legal, and People Ops to align headcount planning, equity budgeting, compensation governance, and SEC-ready processes.
Provide practical, hands-on coaching to managers and executives — not just high-level frameworks, but tactical tools and clear guidance they can use immediately.
Influence Merlin’s culture by embedding fairness, transparency, and clarity into every touchpoint of the employee lifecycle.
Requirements
10+ years in Total Rewards, Compensation, or HR Operations within high-growth tech, aerospace, robotics, engineering, or similarly complex environments.
Experience building (not just inheriting) compensation, benefits, and equity programs — ideally including job architecture and compensation philosophy design.
A hands-on operator who genuinely enjoys modeling comp scenarios, fixing workflows, working in spreadsheets, and implementing systems.
Experience preparing for or supporting a private-to-public transition (IPO, SPAC, or late-stage readiness).
Deep expertise in benchmarking, equity design, salary structures, pay compliance, and incentive mechanisms.
Analytical, structured communicator; capable of turning complexity into clarity and building scalable systems without unnecessary process.
Comfortable supporting technical engineering, flight test, and autonomy-focused teams where rigor and precision matter.
Nice to Have:
Experience working with a Board of Directors or Compensation Committee.
Familiarity with Rippling, Radford, Option Impact, or similar tools.
Multi-state or global compensation/benefits experience.
