Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.
Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.
Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.
Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.
Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.
Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.
The role, in a nutshell: We're looking for a Director of Total Rewards to own compensation and benefits strategy as Chainguard scales from a startup into its next phase of growth. This role will lead our Total Rewards team, managing our Compensation Manager and Benefits team, and will be responsible for setting the strategy that keeps us competitive as we compete for talent against some of the biggest names in tech.
You'll partner closely with the business to build a total rewards approach that's both employee-first and cost-effective, while helping us extend our compensation and benefits programs into new countries as we expand internationally. This is a role with real ownership and runway. You'll shape how we think about pay, benefits, and rewards as the company roughly doubles in size over the next several years.
What You'll Do:
- Own and set Chainguard's total rewards strategy across compensation and benefits
- Manage and develop the Total Rewards team
- Lead our approach to global compensation and benefits strategy as we expand into new international markets, including the UK, Canada, and Germany, with more countries to follow
- Partner with the business to balance employee experience with cost efficiency, identifying legacy programs or underutilized benefits that can be redesigned or retired without eroding our benefits-rich culture
- Stay ahead of market trends in compensation and benefits, helping Chainguard remain competitive for talent against major players in the market
- Oversee banding, market pricing, and merit cycles, in partnership with the Compensation Manager
- Advise leadership on comp and benefits strategy tied to headcount growth and cost management as the company scales
- Build scalable total rewards processes as the team and company grow
What We're Looking For:
- 8-10 years of progressive compensation and benefits experience, including 3+ years in a management capacity.
- Proven experience setting total rewards strategy, with a strong background in either compensation or benefits (and working knowledge of the other)
- Experience scaling total rewards programs at a high-growth SaaS or startup company, ideally through a growth stage comparable to scaling from roughly 1,000 to 3,000+ employees
- End-to-end experience running compensation cycles — job architecture, market pricing, merit/promotion planning, and bonus design
- Experience with equity program design and administration, including cap table fluency (Carta, Shareworks, or similar)
- Strong command of market pricing and benchmarking tools (Radford, Pave, Mercer, or similar)
- International experience required, particularly across EMEA; experience in Japan, Singapore, or South America is a strong plus
- Experience partnering with or managing an Employer of Record (EOR) for international employees
- Working knowledge of pay equity and compliance considerations across multi-state and international jurisdictions
- Strong track record managing and developing a team
- Comfort operating with some ambiguity and building process where it doesn't yet exist
- Relevant experience is valued over certifications
- This is a people-manager role reporting into the VP overseeing People
Why This Role: Chainguard is scaling quickly, both domestically and internationally, and our total rewards strategy needs to scale with it. This role sits at the center of that work — helping us stay a benefits-rich, employee-first company while making smart, sustainable decisions about where and how we invest.
You'll have the opportunity to shape compensation and benefits strategy across a rapidly growing, increasingly global organization, with real support to build the team and programs needed to get there.
We live and breathe our company values:
- We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
- We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
- We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
- We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.
A few of the benefits we offer:
- Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
- Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
- 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
- ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need – to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
- 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.
If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.
Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.
By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.
©2026 Chainguard. All Rights Reserved.
Skills Required
- 8–10 years of progressive compensation and benefits experience
- At least 3 years of management experience
- Experience setting total rewards strategy with strong expertise in compensation or benefits and working knowledge of the other
- Experience scaling total rewards programs at a high-growth SaaS or startup company
- End-to-end experience running compensation cycles, including job architecture, market pricing, merit and promotion planning, and bonus design
- Experience with equity program design and administration, including cap table fluency
- Strong command of market pricing and benchmarking tools such as Radford, Pave, or Mercer
- International experience, particularly across EMEA
- Experience partnering with or managing an Employer of Record for international employees
- Working knowledge of pay equity and compliance across multi-state and international jurisdictions
- Strong track record managing and developing a team
- Ability to operate with ambiguity and build new processes
- Experience in Japan, Singapore, or South America
- Relevant experience is valued over certifications
- Experience scaling from approximately 1,000 to 3,000 or more employees
Chainguard Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Chainguard and has not been reviewed or approved by Chainguard.
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Affordable Benefits — Health insurance is fully employer-paid for employees and dependents, materially reducing out-of-pocket costs. Public benefits materials consistently highlight this as a cornerstone of the package.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave for all parents and meaningful family-planning support (including adoption, IVF, egg freezing, and surrogacy) are emphasized across company materials. These elements broaden support for different family paths and stages.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Stock options are granted at hire and promotion with a long post-termination exercise window, improving flexibility and potential value capture. This structure is presented as notably employee-friendly for a startup.
Chainguard Insights
What We Do
Chainguard is the secure foundation for building with open source software. The company's portfolio of secure, minimal container images helps organizations embrace a new culture of software development where starting left with security, not shifting left, is the reality. Chainguard was founded by the industry's leading experts on software supply chain security, open source, software, and cloud-native development. We aren't a traditional security vendor. It's container images provide secure-by-default infrastructure that introduces zero friction to developer workflows. That's why developers love and CISOS trust Chainguard. Its customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and leading technology and security companies, including Anduril, Canva, Domino Data Lab, Checkmarx, HPE, GitLab, Snowflake, and Wiz. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia, and Spark Capital.
Why Work With Us
Security is our mission, but having fun is our mantra. Since our founding, we've increased +1M memes, sung 900+ hours of Kubernetes-themed karaoke, and created 774+ whacky Slack emojis. Beyond this, Chainguard's innovation and leadership in open source and software supply chain security has been recognized by industry leaders.
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