Philosophy

Our goal is to make compensation fair and transparent, while acknowledging the realities of our industry and business model as a non-profit. In particular, we seek to reduce the women and minority salary gap that tends to creep into traditional compensation schemes due to bargaining and fuzzy merit raises by paying the same salary for the same role at the same level, automatically adjusting salaries for cost of living and market changes twice throughout the year, matching raises across levels if someone does successfully bargain for a higher salary, and using evaluations to determine trajectory rather than compensation.

Thus, our promise to employees, prospective and current, is that as long as they meet expectations, we will automatically keep their salary aligned with the market for their role and level to the best of our ability. When they exceed expectations consistently, we will reward them with a promotion that comes with a large raise that eliminates the penalty that often comes with staying at a company. When they do not meet expectations, we will work together to create Performance Improvement Plans that lay out clear, measurable expectations and timeframes for remaining at the company.

Determining Salaries

We take a market-based approach to determining starting salaries for roles. At the beginning of every calendar year, the leadership team will meet to adjust salaries for each role and level. These salaries will be determined using TriNet’s compensation research tool, or other online benchmarking tools, for similar job roles, using New York City as the location (regardless of candidate geography).

To reduce imbalances between technical and non-technical roles while still competing for top talent, when possible we try to set salaries in the top quartile of non-engineering/product salaries, and in the third quartile of engineering/product salaries. We acknowledge, without endorsing the practice, that to compete for talent and maintain a sustainable organization, tech roles will usually be compensated more than non-tech roles at the same levels.

When new roles are created mid-year, the same approach will be used to determine starting salary ranges, in one-off leadership conversations.

Due to IRS requirements, salaries for key executive roles will be determined by a separate, board-driven policy that involves comparing executive salaries to other similar ones in our industry. However, our intention is to propose that the board pay leadership a fixed percentage increase over the average salaries of the next-highest levels in the company. This way, we account for imbalances between different teams and minimize over-compensation of executives.

Salaries & Negotiation for New Hires

Starting in October 2022, we will list the current salary for the role and level on all job descriptions, with a link to this page explaining our compensation policy. In general, those salaries are fixed, and as a budget-constrained non-profit, we have limited room for negotiation. Our belief is that because of the steps we take to adjust for market and inflation throughout the year and automatically bargain on behalf of employees, that salaries will already be competitive, and that if we are competitive with another offer, new hires will choose KF because they know our automatic adjustment policies will ultimately help them catch up to and exceed the total compensation offered by a competitor without the stress of bargaining.

However, if prospective hires ultimately believe the offer is significantly under-valued, they can argue for either an adjustment at that level, or for them to be considered for a higher level position.

Salary Adjustments

We believe in paying the same amount for the same work done at the same level in each role at each level, regardless of tenure.

Cost of Living Adjustments

At the end of the 4th and 2nd CY quarters (January, July), KF leadership will meet to determine if economic conditions, market changes, and KF’s budget merit a cost of living adjustment. If so, they will apply to the entire team, regardless of performance.

Salary Stabilization Adjustments

Whenever someone is given a salary adjustment, including when a new hire is made, everyone else in their role and level must be brought up to the highest salary level in the company at that role and level. In this way, we help bargain for employees automatically, reduce bias, reduce the cost of staying at the company vs. seeking a new job, and allow employees who receive less than satisfactory evaluations but later improve to catch up quickly.

Promotions

When employees are promoted to a new level, they should receive the same compensation as the highest-paid employee at that level. Promotion is based on the employee beginning to perform the expectations of a higher-level job.

Employees must have been at their role and level for at least 1 year, and have two exceeds expectations on performance reviews in a row to receive a promotion. We expect most employees to take between 18 months and 2 years to achieve a promotion between levels, though they may occasionally happen faster.

Evaluations

Once a year in January, we undergo our formal 360º review process. Based on the evaluations and assessment of their last years’ performance, and after consulting with the Leadership team, managers will assign one of three evaluations to their reports: meets expectations, does not meet expectations, or exceeds expectations. These evaluations will not determine compensation; rather, they will be used to set trajectories for promotion.

Roles, Levels, and Salaries

Last update: October 2022

Roles are divided by functional category and level. Each level should include a ~15% higher salary than the previous one, with the exception of leadership, which will have salaries set via the executive compensation process. There can be multiple roles within a category at each level, but the pay should be the same across the level.

Rather than bands, we have set standard salaries at each category-level that change as adjustments are made.

Levels

Having levels is a nice way to think about roles and responsibilities, but we try to avoid having too many. Generally, levels should follow this rubric.

Level	Description
6	Leadership
5	Manager of employees, or high-level IC in charge of a product, project, or function
4	Senior IC or mid-level manager of a few reports
3	Mid-to-senior IC
2	Entry-to mid-level IC
1	Entry-level IC

Salaries

In our I&E spreadsheet. We intend to publish salaries both within the company and publicly beginning in 2023, after collecting employee feedback on the idea.

Leadership Roles

Level	Title	Expectations
6	Executive Director	Responsible for carrying and synthesizing KF's vision; ensuring it reflects the passion and insights of the team. Ultimately responsible for team strategies, resources, and focus. Responsible for fundraising and revenue strategies. Coordinates with Heads to ensure development of team and culture in alignment with KF’s mission and values. Coordinates with board of directors to provides performance updates and advocate for needs of KF. Serves as organization's representative to public.
6	Head	Ensure development of single functional team and its culture in alignment with KF's mission and values. Design and facilitate associated functional team’s strategies and processes. Advocate for necessary resources. Coordinate with ED and other Heads to articulate, organize, measure, and fulfill KF’s goals.

Engineering Roles

Level	Title	Expectations
5	Director of Engineering	Responsible for setting overall engineering process, philosophy, and vision at KF. Manages engineers across one or more products. Coordinates engineering process across one or more products. Tasks engineering work and coordinates larger projects/teams.
5	Staff Engineer	Responsible for technical architecture and direction of a single product. Co-responsible for direction/success of a single product along with a product lead or PM Director. Mentors other engineers. Ships major features/fixes. Reviews major features/fixes.
4	Senior Software Engineer	Proposes major features/fixes. Ships major features/fixes. Reviews major and minor features/fixes. Helps mentor and advise more junior engineers on the team.
4	Engineering Manager	Manages engineers on their project. Reviews major features/fixes and helps steer planning and architectural conversations. Ships occasional feature/fix.
3	Senior Software Engineer	Proposes major features/fixes. Ships major features/fixes. Reviews major and minor features/fixes.
2	Software Engineer	Proposes small-to-mid-size features. Ships small-to-mid-size features/fixes. Reviews small-to-mid-size features/fixes.
1	Software Engineer	Ships small features and fixes. Reviews small features and fixes.

Product & Design Roles

Level	Title	Expectations
5	Director of Product	Manages PMs across one or more products. Coordinates product process across one or more products. Works with PMs and eng to set backlog and prio across one or more products.
5	Product Lead	Co-responsible for direction and success of one product with Staff Engineer. Owns discovery, specification, feedback, backlog and prioritization process for their product. May manage a PM or two in their product line.
4	Senior UX/UI Designer	Works with Product Lead to define & steward team design tools & processes Stewards overall product look & feel Works with product & engineering teams to gather user requirements for feature development using a variety of qualitative & quantitative feedback collection techniques Develops high-fidelity mockups and/or in-browser prototypes for feature components Works with engineers to design accessible graphic user interface elements for features Helps QA & troubleshoot new features prior to launch
4	Senior Product Manager	Owns discovery, specification, feedback, backlog and prioritization process for a project or product. Mentors other PMs.
3	UI/UX Designer	Plans & leads user interview/feedback sessions with product & other designers Develops high-fidelity mockups and/or in-browser prototypes for feature components based on requirements Works with engineers to design accessible graphic user interface elements for features Helps QA & troubleshoot new features prior to launch
3	Product Manager	Works with stakeholders to gather needs, user feedback, etc. and produce requirements for features. Works with eng team to spec features prior to build. During build, answers questions from eng team. Coordinates testing of features. Approves release of feature. Works with marketing to communicate release and documentation of feature. Helps answer/route incoming tech support questions.
2	UX/UI Designer	Leads user interview/feedback sessions Works with designers to develop key parts of mockups in response to requirements Works with engineers to design accessible graphic user interface elements for features Helps QA & troubleshoot new features prior to launch
2	Product manager	Works with stakeholders to gather needs, user feedback, etc. and produce requirements for features. Works with eng team to spec features prio to build. During build, answers questions from eng team. Coordinates testing of features. Approves release of feature. Works with marketing to communicate release and documentation of feature. Helps answer/route incoming tech support questions.
1	Associate UX/UI Designer	Assists with user interview/feedback sessions Works with designers and, occasionally, engineers to design parts of accessible graphic user interface elements for features Helps QA & troubleshoot new features prior to launch
1	Associate Product Manager	During build, answers or routes questions from eng team to responsible party in org. Helps coordinate testing of features. Works with PMs to coordinate testing of features. Assists in writing documentation and comms for features. Helps answer/route incoming tech support questions. Owns lifecycle for smaller features.

Operations Roles

To be filled out in 2023.

Level	Title	Expectations
5	Director of Operations
4	Senior Operations Manager
3	Operations Manager
2	Operations Manager
1	Operations Associate

Community Roles

Level	Title	Expectations
5	Director of Services	Establishes services strategy in tandem with broader KF goals Cultivates leads for expanded services offerings and new partnerships Manages all contracts Work with team to balance bandwidth and services capacity
5	Editorial Director	Sets content strategy in alignment with KF goals Maintains and expands our network of relationships Manages the Commonplace team Oversees site design and structure
4	Editorial Manager	Manages teams executing on services Maintains our team editorial calendar with an eye to strategic priorities and team bandwidth Participates in demos and intro calls for potential new partners Leads strategy and execution of platform documentation, including user best-practices guides and toolkits Establishes internal team templates for effective project execution
4	Senior Managing Editor	Spearheads strategy, organization and execution of Commonplace series and features Contributes to yearly Commonplace goal setting
3	Editorial Manager	Leads the strategy and production of Community Services assignments Informs PubPub’s Membership and Services growth strategy based on interactions with partners Represents PubPub/KF at select industry events and conferences Works directly with community admins (editors, authors, researchers, publishers, conference organizers) to advise on publication practices and options on PubPub Listens to feedback from users and communicates it to our product and design teams to inform platform roadmap
3	Managing Editor	Maintains high editorial standards for Commonplace that reflect its mission and goals Experiments with and pushes the boundaries of PubPub to help create models and ideas for users and our team Manages relationships with guest editors and contributing authors
2	Production Editor	Leads the execution of Community Services assignments Interacts and manages communications with publishers, authors, and/or editors to learn about their work and grasp the goals of their publication Creates media—including video abstracts, visualizations, and other interactive elements—to enhance publications Highlights standout production examples both internally and externally Expands their creative capabilities to better execute and enhance services
2	Acquisitions Editor	Maintains editorial calendar Proposes and cultivates potential contributors to Commonplace Shepherds author pieces from ideation to publication
1	Production Editor	Experiments with and pushes the boundaries of PubPub to help create models and ideas for users and our team Provides thoughtful feedback to partners as well as to PubPub’s dev team toward the goal of improving our publications, products, and operations Maintain your production calendar toward ensuring the timely completion of assignments
1	Acquisitions Editor	Executes on tasks related to editing and publishing incoming articles Maintains site organization Channels feedback and insights from authors and readers into editorial decision-making Contributes acquisitions and series ideas

Interns

Interns are paid hourly for a set number of hours per week, or via stipend for a set number of hours over the course of a business quarter (3 months), with the option to renew for an additional quarter(s) with the formal agreement of the Intern and their manager. The pay structure for Interns will depend on requirements from their University/College if they are a student and/or on the kind of projects they will be working on.

Interns paid hourly will have a starting salary of between $20 and $30/hour and will work no more than 20 hours/week. Interns paid via stipend will receive half of their stipend upon starting their internship and their second and final stipend payment 2 months later.

Knowledge Futures Compensation Policy