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We aim to be proactive in our pay reviews (market benchmarks, steps and levels), for the whole team every 6 months based on your start date. You do not need to do anything, our aim going forward is to be proactive without needing you to ask. You should not expect a change in your step or level every six months, you will find your step will change more often than your level.
Finally, we may change pay without editing Step or Level if we feel the market rates for the underlying benchmark have gone up. We will also keep compensation & performance reflections separate.
To make sure people are having an equal chance of getting a pay rise, we will not factor in how often someone asks for one. We will assess you according to our compensation calculator and the steps and levels defined above. This allows us to be inclusive, as statistically underrepresented groups are less likely to request a pay rise.
We want to increase pay as frequently as we can in a proactive way, rather than putting the burden on employees. Any increases will be communicated to you by Maitham, this is not the managers responsibility at Junction. Beth will follow up with confirmation, and your next monthly paycheck will reflect this.
You will only hear from us, if there has been a change in your pay not if it is staying the same. We will not review everyone the same day and we do not share when we decided not to increase your pay. This is a deliberate choice to minimize pressure around the process.
Statistically, with more reviews, it is more likely than not your pay won’t change in a given review. We don’t want people to feel disappointed that their pay isn’t increasing every six months, this isn’t realistic.
360 Feedbacks is separate from compensation reviews, they are used to help team members grow and develop and the questions are reflective of that. Whilst performance is taken into account to define your level, the outcome of the 360 feedback itself is not used.
Equity refreshes represent a portion of company ownership or stock that is provided to employees as a reward and incentive. We provide equity refreshes based on the commitment, time, effort and expertise to our company. Our equity refreshes are not just random handouts; they're a reflection of your impact at Junction, your loyalty and continuity within the company.
They are typically based on this:
An explanation of the factors are below:
Seniority is not a title to be sought, everyone is considered an owner of the company. More experience does not correlate with increased importance. When a team member first joins, it is logical that their pay reflects the skill level they were hired for, over time time this judgement becomes more subjective and is based on the speed with which you can ship or help the team to ship, prioritization and decision-making and your technical approach.
Steps allow us to have more flexibility within each level, to keep these simple the following levels exist:
We will use the benchmark for hiring to be the market rate in San Francisco. We use the following factors to determine total compensation cash + equity.
The benchmark is tied to revenue intentionally. Everyone should feel like owners and if revenue increases then that should be reflected in how much budget we can assign to hiring.
Location factors are based on GitLab’s location factors, and are based on market rates, not cost of living. It is based on combination of data from Economic Research Institute (ERI), Numbeo, Comptryx, Radford, Robert Half, and Dice to calculate what a fair market rate is for each location. You can read more here.
We understand objections against using location as input, however regardless of where you work all salary is tied to market data which is all based on location. We are transparent about our calculations so that we can set clear expectations. We also ensure that everyone is paid in the top brackets for their role.
To prevent too much disparity between locations we set a global floor of 0.6 to all location factors, hence no-one will have a location factor lower than 0.6. This is to ensure there is not a large pay disparity between locations, whilst allowing us to be competitive in certain locations.
Executive roles are not compensated using the calculator - however is based on the exact same market database. Execs are expected to be thriving at baseline and we do not have separate levels or steps to represent this.