Senior Director Salaries Vary Modestly by Startup Valuation

Should you take that Senior Director offer at a startup worth $25 million or $250 million?

When it comes to base salary, the gap might not be as large as you expect.

Look at a Senior Director in Data Science, for instance. At a startup worth $25 million, the base salary for that position is currently around $206,000. At a much larger company worth $250M, the salary starts at $225,000.

That's a solid jump! But 10% is not a chasm.

There are certain functions like Marketing or Design where the gap is higher, but on the whole candidates should expect between a 15%-20% boost in base for a 10x jump in company valuation.

BTW, a $25M company is likely ~Seed or Series A while a $250M valuation is around Series C-ish.

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆?

On the one hand, equity grants at the larger company will be much smaller. Probably something like 75% less equity (expressed as a percentage of total diluted shares) than the offer from the $25M company.

On the other hand, the equity from the $250M scale-up is much more likely to end up resulting in some value, as the equity from the small company remains at high risk of becoming a zero.

Is the comfort of a 20% salary increase worth the decreased equity? Is the equity risk level at the small company too much for your risk appetite? Such an individual choice.

Of course the content of the role is likely very different as well.

𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 $𝟮𝟱𝗠 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 In the weeds every day building the function. Lots of IC work. Dips toes into all sorts of problems and projects.

𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 $𝟮𝟱𝟬𝗠 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 Much more about managing teams, communicating cross-functionally, managing up, generally speaking. Although maybe with the advent of AI this is less true?

No right answer! Everyone has different risk tolerance and need for current cash.

As it is often stated: are you optimized for learning or earning?

Startup comp introduces all sorts of questions in a way that compensation at Big Tech mostly avoids.

#𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽𝘀 #𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗿𝘆 #𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 #𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 #startupjobs

__________

BTW, dunno if you noticed in the graphic - but Carta Total Compensation, our comp product that helps founders build the best compensation benchmarks anywhere in private tech, is now powered by over 1 million startup employee records.

Largest such database anywhere in the world? Pretty cool 😎

More data on comp, hiring, and job movement in startups here: https://lnkd.in/dqvAt6Tv