VP, Total Rewards

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.