Thelander PC Digest: January 2026
Salary Structures 101
In this month’s PC Digest, we’re breaking down what a real compensation infrastructure is, how to put one in place, when to do it and how to plan for shifts in cash and equity ranges as you raise capital or your revenue increases.
First of all, what is a compensation infrastructure exactly? This means building a clear job architecture and pay (salary) structure within your company. It includes defined levels for science, technical and administrative roles, for example, from directors to entry level, with correlating cash compensation and equity bands that are tied to market data. It also means moving away from ad-hoc decisions based on what an individual asks for or paying position by position in an unpurposeful manner as this can lead to problems. For this newsletter, we’re going to focus on director-level employees and below, since executive compensation is typically done on a one by one basis.
It is never too early to put this infrastructure in place – the sooner the better and the stronger your foundation will be. That way, you and your team can spend less time wondering whether employees are competitive and more time focusing on what you do best: building the business.
Here at Thelander, we’ve learned that the best way to do this is by designing Pay Plans with total cash and equity ranges according to both level (Directors, Managers, Specialists and Support) and job function (Admin, Scientific and Technical). We also provide separate pay plans with their own leveling structure for more specialized job functions like Engineering, Scientists and Sales.
For example, let’s look at the Engineer Pay Plan and compare how the total cash and equity ranges shift as a company raises capital – from less than $15 million to $15 – $49.9 million in total financing.
Key Takeaways:
As you move from less than $15 million total financing to $15 – $49.9 million, total cash increases around 10% at both the median and 75th %ile.
At the same time, equity decreases by around 60% at both percentiles.
This shift from lower cash and higher equity to higher cash and lower equity is what you’d expect to happen as the financing increases, but knowing the magnitude of these changes requires a framework that incorporates accurate and reliable market data.
This is exactly how a scalable and strategic salary structure should work: as the company scales, the pay plans evolve with it in accordance to the market.
What’s the bottom line?
Your infrastructure is only as good as the data behind it. What makes Thelander different is our attention to matching your unique job titles to the correct Thelander job title, level and Pay Plan, and then layering in real-time private company market data.
If you’re interested in learning more about Thelander Pay Plans or how we can help you put your compensation infrastructure in place, you can request a demo here. You can also access real-time compensation data for every job title you complete in the no-cost Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey. Give your data and get Thelander data back for free.
Tags: Newsletter, Private Company