--- title: 'Senior Variable Compensation Manager at Crusoe' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-variable-compensation-manager-crusoe-san-francisco-v377daythfgn' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-16' --- # Senior Variable Compensation Manager at Crusoe - **Company:** [Crusoe](https://feeny.ai/companies/crusoe) - **Location:** San Francisco, CA / United States - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-18 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/crusoe/162ccad3-5860-44e1-93d1-d28c8ed9159b ## Job description Crusoe is on a mission to accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence. As the only vertically integrated AI infrastructure company built from the ground up, we own and operate each layer of the stack — from electrons to tokens — to power the world's most ambitious AI workloads. When you join Crusoe, you join a team that is building the future, faster. We're in the midst of the greatest industrial revolution of our time. The demand for AI compute is boundless, and power is a bottleneck. We're solving that — with an energy-first approach that makes AI infrastructure better for the world and faster for the people innovating with AI. We're looking for problem-solving, opportunity-finding teammates with a sense of urgency, who believe in the scale of our ambition and thrive on a path not fully paved — people who want to grow their careers alongside a team of experts across energy, manufacturing, data center construction, and cloud services. If you want to do the most meaningful work of your career, help our customers and partners advance their AI strategies, and be part of a high-performing team that believes in each other, come build with us at Crusoe. About the Role: As a Senior Variable Compensation Manager, you will play a key role on the Total Rewards team, specifically providing strategic and operational support across Crusoe’s variable compensation programs. You will work closely with the Director of Variable Compensation, VP of Total Rewards, CPO, as well as other senior leaders at Crusoe to help design and deliver data-driven solutions that help us attract and retain top talent. This is a highly visible, hands-on role for a proactive and self-starting professional who will thrive in a fast-paced startup environment. This is a unique opportunity to build incentive programs from inception to operationalisation. To be successful in this role, candidates must have the ability to contextualise ambiguous requests, leveraging advanced analytical and modeling skills, in order to produce simple and reliable data driven insights. Ability to think outside of the box and deliver custom solutions is a major core competency. What You'll Be Working On: - Incentive Program Design - Participate in the strategy, design, implementation and ongoing improvement of traditional (GTM) and non traditional incentive programs. - Lead end-to-end administration and governance of incentive programs - drafting plan documentation, modeling, achievement calculations, validation, and payout execution. - Serve as a point of accountability for incentive plan accuracy, compliance, and operational integrity. - Ensure all employees on a variable plan have a signed plan document in a smooth and trackable fashion. - Analyze program effectiveness, cost, and performance outcomes; proactively surface insights and recommendations to leadership. - Work on market research and cost modeling in order to help design competitive incentive programs for non-direct sales groups. - Partner with Finance, Accounting, and RevOps to ensure accurate compensation forecasting, accruals, and budget management. - Collaborate with the Internal Communications and HR team to effectively roll out and educate managers and eligible employees on variable compensation programs. - Data and Analytics: - Deliver complex modeling of ambiguous plan design. - Navigate data integrity issues in order to produce reliable insights. - Partner with HRIS and People Analytics to design, build, and maintain compensation dashboards that enable quick review of market positioning for short and long term incentives and budget utilization needs. - Help improve data integrity and optimize HR tech stack functionality for incentives tracking and accuracy. - Explore and pilot AI and automation tools to streamline repetitive tasks and enhance predictive analytics capabilities - Develop measurable metrics to track incentive program performance. What You'll Bring to the Team: - Experience: 7+ years of compensation experience, with a mix of start up and large tech company experience. Fast pace start up experience preferred. - Experience with end-to-end ownership of incentive programs including design, modeling, and administration is a strong plus. - Experience with presenting and influencing senior leadership preferred. - Preferred Experience: Modeling/forecasting experience is a key competency. - Core Competencies: Deep knowledge of incentive-based compensation programs. - Skills: Exceptional analytical skills with a proficiency in spreadsheet software and experience with large datasets. Ability to navigate data integrity issues effectively in order to produce reliable dashboards and analytics. Strong communication skills with the ability to simplify complex concepts and present recommendations to diverse audiences, including senior leaders. - A proven ability to work autonomously and manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment. - Proficiency with HRIS systems (Rippling, Workday, Pave) preferred. - Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives - Experience working with senior leadership preferred Benefits: - Competitive compensation and equity packages - Restricted Stock Units - Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs - Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance - Employer contributions to HSA account - Paid parental leave - Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability - Professional development & tuition reimbursement - Mental health & wellness support - Commuter benefits (parking & transit) - Cell phone stipend - 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary - Volunteer time off - Global travel insurance & emergency assistance - Daily meals allowance - Additional perks & programs specific to location ## Compensation Range Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $175,000 - $215,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data. Crusoe is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, citizenship, marital status, sex/gender, sexual preference/ orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, national origin, or any other status protected by law or regulation. ## About Crusoe ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Crusoe is an energy-first AI infrastructure company that designs, builds, and operates hyperscale data centers and a cloud platform purpose-built for artificial intelligence workloads. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series E) - **Headquarters**: Denver, Colorado, USA - **Founded**: 2018 - **Founders**: Chase Lochmiller and Cully Cavness ## Core Business - Primary industry/industries: AI Infrastructure, Cloud Computing, Data Centers, Clean Energy - Target customers: Enterprise AI companies, AI-native startups, research institutions, government agencies (B2B) - **Mission**: "Accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence." ## Products & Services - **Crusoe Cloud**: An AI-optimized cloud platform purpose-built for AI workloads, featuring high-performance NVIDIA and AMD compute, accelerated storage, and optimized RDMA networking. Claims to deploy models up to 20x faster and cut costs by up to 81%. - **Crusoe Managed Inference**: A managed AI inference service built with Crusoe's proprietary MemoryAlloy technology, offering best-in-class speed, throughput, and reliability. Features the Crusoe Intelligence Foundry for model selection and API key management. - **AI Data Center Infrastructure**: Vertically integrated design, build, and operation of hyperscale AI factories (e.g., the 1.2 GW Stargate campus in Abilene, TX). Modular, scalable construction for power-hungry AI workloads. - **Crusoe Managed Kubernetes & Slurm**: Managed orchestration services that eliminate operational overhead for customers. - **Crusoe AutoClusters**: Fault-tolerant, managed cluster services for large-scale AI training. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private company). - **Key Metric**: Raised over $1.8B+ in total funding (Series E in 2024 was $1B+; Series D in 2024 was $600M; Series C in 2021 was $350M). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: NVIDIA, NYDIG, GE Vernova, Redwood Materials, Tallgrass, AMD. The company has also partnered with leading energy and technology firms to power its data centers. - **Growth Signals**: Divested bitcoin mining business to NYDIG in 2023 to focus exclusively on AI infrastructure; broke ground on the 1.2 GW Stargate campus in Abilene, TX; expanded into Europe with a geothermal/hydro-powered deployment in Iceland; announced 1.8 GW Wyoming data center with Tallgrass; acquired GPU memory optimization startup Atero and established a Tel Aviv office. ## Competitive Advantages - **Energy-First Approach**: The company’s core differentiator is its vertical integration starting from energy sourcing. It uses "environmentally aligned power sources" (wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, natural gas with carbon capture) to power its AI factories, including pioneering technology to convert wasted natural gas into energy. - **Vertical Integration**: Controls the entire stack—from finding innovative energy sources to building and managing hyperscale data centers and operating the cloud platform. - **NVIDIA Partnership**: Close partnership with NVIDIA, providing access to the latest and highest-performance GPU hardware for its cloud and infrastructure. - **Proven Performance**: Claims 99.98% uptime, 100% customer satisfaction score, and significant cost/performance advantages (up to 81% cost reduction). ## Strategic Focus - **Massive Infrastructure Expansion**: Aggressively scaling its data center footprint, with major projects in Abilene, Texas (Stargate) and Wyoming (Tallgrass), and expansion into Europe. - **Deepening AI Cloud**: Continuing to build out its Crusoe Cloud platform with managed services (Kubernetes, Slurm, AutoClusters) to make it easier for AI companies to use their infrastructure. - **Responsible AI**: Emphasizing sustainability and responsible AI governance, as evidenced by achieving ISO 42001 certification and publishing an ESG report. - **Acquisition-led Growth**: Acquired Atero (GPU memory optimization) to enhance its core technology stack. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-Driven**: The company is united by a tangible mission: "Accelerate the abundance of energy and intelligence." Employees report high levels of engagement (92% proud to work there per internal survey). - **Massive Growth Trajectory**: Crusoe is at the center of the AI infrastructure boom, building some of the world's most powerful AI factories. For job seekers, this means exposure to cutting-edge technology and the opportunity to scale a company from a startup to an industry leader. - **Culture**: The company values "moving fast and making things," continuous learning, and collective genius. It describes itself as an "AI factory company" that values velocity and impact. - **Work Policy**: Hybrid/Office presence required in most roles. Office locations include: Denver (HQ), San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Bellevue, Tulsa, Dublin (Ireland), and Tel Aviv (Israel). - **Benefits**: Competitive compensation & equity, comprehensive health & wellness, mental health resources, retirement plans, paid time off, leave of absence programs, learning & development, volunteer time off, daily meals allowance, and other location-specific perks. - **Engineering Culture**: Strong emphasis on technical excellence, working with large-scale systems, and pioneering new approaches to energy and infrastructure. The company values candidates' "AI fluency" in its hiring process. ## Sources 1. [crusoe.ai](https://www.crusoe.ai/) 2. [crusoe.ai/careers](https://www.crusoe.ai/about/careers) 3. [crusoe.ai/about/culture](https://www.crusoe.ai/about/careers/culture) 4. [crusoe.ai/about/company](https://www.crusoe.ai/about/company) ## Other roles at Crusoe - [Staff Software Engineer, Storage](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-storage-crusoe-sunnyvale-jxasjk9ptq7b) — Sunnyvale, CA / United States - [AI Tools Engineer, Storage Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-tools-engineer-storage-infrastructure-crusoe-san-francisco-p959jsmvr8cx) — San Francisco, CA / United States - [Senior Staff R&D Technical Project Manager Design](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-r-d-technical-project-manager-design-crusoe-denver-sjhr92y0bmz3) — Denver, CO / United States - [Senior Contracts Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-contracts-specialist-crusoe-denver-ap9n5y60w12c) — Denver, CO / United States - [Senior Contracts Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-contracts-specialist-crusoe-san-francisco-gxngymx4waxq) — San Francisco, CA / United States - [Senior Staff Software Engineer, Storage](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-storage-crusoe-sunnyvale-x67581ywfzka) — Sunnyvale, CA / United States - [Director, Accounting – Manufacturing](https://feeny.ai/job/director-accounting-manufacturing-crusoe-tulsa-v2xbnpc22bbs) — Tulsa, OK - [Director, Accounting – Manufacturing](https://feeny.ai/job/director-accounting-manufacturing-crusoe-brighton-ey2ck2jadq82) — Brighton, CO / United States - [Senior Customer Support Engineer - Managed Inference](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-customer-support-engineer-managed-inference-crusoe-denver-kqghywq4j8ks) — Denver, CO / United States - [Senior Customer Support Engineer - Managed Inference](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-customer-support-engineer-managed-inference-crusoe-new-york-xkct785w7et2) — New York, NY / United States