# Compensation Band Design ## Senior Software Engineer — Individual Contributor Track --- ### CARD 1 — EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Market data (Radford, peer group) puts base salary at $155,000 (50th percentile) to $172,000 (75th percentile) for this role and level. The constructed band is **$155,000 – $172,000 base**, with a $163,500 midpoint. The single biggest open item: this entire band sits *above* the current internal band's $150,000 ceiling, and two existing employees at this level are already near that ceiling — meaning the market-supported floor for new hires would land above where tenured incumbents currently sit. This is a live internal equity and budget question that needs resolution before the band is used for offers. --- ### CARD 2 — LEVELING CRITERIA SUMMARY What was supplied: this level is defined by end-to-end ownership of feature delivery with minimal oversight — i.e., an IC expected to run a feature from design through shipment independently, rather than executing scoped tasks under close direction. No description of adjacent levels (e.g., a Mid-level or Staff Engineer definition) was provided, so I can't cross-check this level's boundaries against what sits above or below it. Fit status: **PARTIAL FIT** — the responsibilities described are consistent with a typical "Senior IC" framing, but this is an inference (`INFERRED-1`), not a documented comparison against adjacent-level criteria. --- ### CARD 3 — MARKET DATA REGISTER | Benchmark Figure | Value | Source Status | Note | |---|---|---|---| | Base Salary, 50th percentile | $155,000 | USER-PROVIDED | Radford survey, this role/level, stated peer group | | Base Salary, 75th percentile | $172,000 | USER-PROVIDED | Radford survey, this role/level, stated peer group | | Variable/Bonus benchmark | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | — | | Equity benchmark | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | — | | Benefits differentiators | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | — | | Geographic pay differential | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | Role is fully remote/national, but no location-based benchmark splits were supplied | --- ### CARD 4 — BAND CONSTRUCTION | Component | Low | Mid | High | Basis | |---|---|---|---|---| | Base Salary | $155,000 | $163,500 | $172,000 | Anchored directly to the two user-supplied Radford percentile points (50th = $155K, 75th = $172K, both USER-PROVIDED). Mid is the arithmetic midpoint (DERIVED FROM USER DATA). No benchmark point below the 50th percentile was supplied, so the band floor is set at the 50th percentile itself rather than padded downward. | | Variable/Bonus | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | No bonus/variable benchmark supplied. | | Equity | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | No equity benchmark supplied. | | Benefits Differentiators | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | No benefits benchmark supplied. | | Total Comp Positioning | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | NOT PROVIDED | Cannot be computed without bonus/equity data. Base salary alone sits within the supplied 50th–75th percentile range, but that says nothing about total comp positioning. | --- ### CARD 5 — BAND DIAGNOSTIC | Factor | Score | Status | Rationale | |---|---|---|---| | Leveling Criterion Fit | 3/5 (`INFERRED-1`) | PARTIAL FIT | Role description matches typical Senior IC scope, but no adjacent-level criteria were supplied to confirm the boundary is correctly drawn. | | Market Competitiveness | 3/5 (`DOCUMENTED`) | PARTIAL FIT | Base salary is directly benchmarked and the constructed range sits exactly on the supplied 50th–75th percentile data. But this only covers 1 of 5 comp components — total comp competitiveness is unassessable. | | Budget Fit | 1/5 (`DOCUMENTED`) | WEAK FIT | The constructed band's *floor* ($155,000) already exceeds the current band's stated $150,000 ceiling; the full range sits above it. See Card 8 for the ambiguity on whether $150K is a hard forward constraint. | | Geographic Adjustment Confidence | UNKNOWN | UNKNOWN | Role is fully remote and hired nationally, which often implies a single national band — but that intent wasn't confirmed, and no location-based benchmark splits were supplied to adjust for regardless. | | Internal Equity Friction Index (OPERATIONAL EXTENSION — NOT A LEGAL PAY-EQUITY DETERMINATION) | HIGH | HIGH | Two existing employees are reported as near the current band's $150,000 top. The new band's floor ($155,000) sits above that point, and the mid/high ($163,500 / $172,000) sit $13,500–$22,000 above it. New hires could enter at or above what tenured incumbents currently earn. | **Core Band Reading:** The market data itself is narrow but clean — two directly attributable percentile points, no invented figures. The real fragility isn't the data quality, it's structural: the band the market supports is entirely above the existing internal band, which simultaneously creates a budget question (Card 8) and a concrete compression risk with two named incumbents (Card 6). Total comp positioning can't be assessed at all — four of five components are undocumented. --- ### CARD 6 — INTERNAL EQUITY CHECK Only one internal reference point was supplied: two existing employees at this same level, currently "near the top" of the existing $150,000 band. Exact current pay for these two employees wasn't given beyond that description, so I'm not assigning them a precise figure — but taking "near the top" at face value: - **New band Low ($155,000) vs. existing incumbents (~near $150,000):** the new floor already sits at or above where these two employees currently are. A new hire could start at or above two tenured employees' current pay on day one. - **New band Mid ($163,500) vs. existing incumbents:** roughly a $13,500+ gap above their estimated current position. - **New band High ($172,000) vs. existing incumbents:** roughly a $22,000+ gap above their estimated current position. This is a real, nameable compression/inversion risk, not a marginal one — it isn't being smoothed over here. Rule 11 doesn't apply structurally (only one group at one level was described, not multiple adjacent roles), but the gap itself still needs to be named plainly, and it is: **new-hire floor pay would land at or above current top-of-band pay for existing staff.** --- ### CARD 7 — GEOGRAPHIC ADJUSTMENT NOTE No geographic adjustment could be made — no location-based benchmark data was supplied. The role being fully remote and hired nationally is noted, but a national hiring footprint does not by itself justify assuming a single national band or any specific geo-differential; that would require user-supplied location-based figures, which weren't given. --- ### CARD 8 — BUDGET CONSTRAINT CHECK No explicit "you must not exceed $X" budget ceiling was stated. The only budget-adjacent figure supplied is that **the current band tops out at $150,000**. This is ambiguous in a way worth flagging directly (per the spirit of Rule 10, even though that rule is framed around total-comp vs. base-comp): it's unclear whether (a) $150,000 is meant as a **hard ceiling** this redesign must still respect, or (b) it's simply the **outdated status quo** this exercise exists to move past. That distinction changes the read entirely: - **If (a):** the entire constructed band ($155,000–$172,000) violates the ceiling — even the low end exceeds it by $5,000. - **If (b):** no explicit ceiling has actually been given for the new band, and "Budget Fit" in Card 5 should be read as provisional rather than a true violation. This ambiguity is unresolved and should be confirmed before the band is finalized or used in offers. --- ### CARD 9 — ASSUMPTIONS & DATA GAPS - Variable/Bonus benchmark — NOT PROVIDED - Equity benchmark — NOT PROVIDED - Benefits differentiators — NOT PROVIDED - Total Comp Positioning target/percentile strategy — NOT PROVIDED - Geographic pay differentials (despite remote/national hiring) — NOT PROVIDED - Exact current pay for the two existing employees at this level — NOT PROVIDED (only described qualitatively as "near the top of that band") - Whether the $150,000 existing band ceiling is a hard forward constraint or a stale reference point — NOT PROVIDED / AMBIGUOUS - Adjacent-level (Mid or Staff) leveling criteria for cross-checking this level's boundaries — NOT PROVIDED --- ### CARD 10 — COMMUNICATION NOTES **To a candidate:** It's accurate to say the offer is informed by Radford peer-group data and sits between the 50th and 75th percentile for base salary at this level. It would **not** be accurate to describe the total offer as "market-competitive" — bonus, equity, and benefits aren't benchmarked here, so no total-comp claim is supportable yet. **To an existing employee at this level:** Avoid implying this is a routine, low-friction band update. If a new band is adopted at these figures, existing employees near the old $150,000 ceiling will reasonably notice that new hires could start at or above their current pay. That should be addressed directly — e.g., through a compensation review for existing staff run alongside the band change — rather than left for someone to discover on their own. Don't soften this into vague language about "periodic market adjustments" if the actual gap is what's described in Card 6. --- ### CARD 11 — METHOD NOTE This band is a structuring aid built from the specific figures supplied, not a compensation-law certification or a substitute for legal pay-equity review. It follows a five-component structure (Base Salary, Variable/Bonus, Equity, Benefits Differentiators, Total Comp Positioning), of which only Base Salary had supporting data; the Internal Equity Friction Index used here is an operational rollout-risk flag, explicitly not a legal pay-equity determination, and it did not alter any dollar figure in the band itself. Geographic context (fully remote, national hiring) was noted but produced no adjustment, since no location-based benchmark differences were supplied — the absence of that data, not an assumption about geography, is what shaped Card 7. Internal constraints (the $150,000 existing band ceiling and the two near-ceiling incumbents) directly shaped Cards 6 and 8, surfacing both an unresolved budget question and a concrete equity compression risk. A compensation professional should validate this band — particularly the equity and budget questions flagged above — before it's used to extend any offers. --- **VERDICT: INTERNAL EQUITY CONFLICT — the market-supported band floor ($155,000) sits at or above where two existing tenured employees currently stand near the old $150,000 ceiling, and this compression risk holds regardless of how the unresolved budget-ceiling ambiguity in Card 8 gets settled.**