Retention & leveling
Team Assessment & Compensation
Get a complete picture of your team's compensation, capabilities, and career paths—before your best people start looking elsewhere.
Diagnosis
Sound Familiar?
Your best engineer just gave notice. They're leaving for a 40% raise—and you had no idea they were underpaid.
"What do I need to do to get promoted?" You don't have a good answer because there's no framework.
Two engineers doing similar work, wildly different pay. Someone's going to find out eventually.
"Walk me through your team structure and compensation philosophy." You're making it up as you go.
Deliverables
What You Get
Market Salary Analysis
Your team benchmarked against current market data: an anonymous salary survey running into the thousands of responses, cross-checked by consulting heads of people directly at companies your size and stack. Filtered to comparable roles, not national averages.
Team Capability Assessment
Each team member mapped to a clear level (SE1 → SE2 → SE3 → Staff/Tech Lead) based on technical skills, scope, autonomy, communication, and ownership.
Career Framework
A complete progression path your team can actually use. Individual contributor and management tracks, with clear criteria for each level.
Investment Scenarios
Two options: "Catch up to market" vs "Get competitive." Each with specific numbers, timelines, and trade-offs so you can have an informed conversation with leadership.
Risk Assessment
A register of what breaks if you do nothing, each risk scored by probability and impact: flight risks, key-person dependencies, the hire you cannot make because the pool is small. Mitigation for each one.
Hiring Plan
The roles you actually need, with seniority, stack, the quarter to start looking, and what each one costs. Totalled monthly and annually so the number goes straight into your model.
Sequenced Plan
What to do first, and in what order. Adjustments are phased across cycles so they do not distort your bands, and the critical hire is named as critical rather than listed alongside the rest.
Formats
Pricing
Benchmarking
$4,000
Know where you stand
- Market salary benchmarking
- Team leveling assessment
- Gap analysis report
2 week delivery
Full Assessment
$6,000
Build your case for leadership
- Everything in Benchmarking
- Career framework design
- Investment scenarios (A/B)
- Risk assessment
- Hiring plan with costs and timing
- Sequenced action plan
- Executive presentation
4 week delivery
Need help executing the recommendations? Add a monthly retainer.
The process
How It Works
1 Week 1: Discovery
- Kickoff call to understand your context
- Collect current compensation data (confidential)
- 1:1 conversations or manager input on each team member
- Review existing documentation and processes
2 Week 2: Analysis & Delivery
- Market benchmarking against multiple data sources
- Build leveling framework and assess each person
- Develop investment scenarios with specific numbers
- Present findings and recommendations
Fit
Who This Is For
Post-Series A Founders
Growing past the chaos. Need to professionalize compensation before it bites.
New CTOs
Just inherited a team. Need to understand capabilities and compensation reality.
CEOs Post-CTO Departure
Your CTO left. Need to understand what you have before hiring the next one.
HR Leaders at Scale-Ups
Engineering is a black box. Need someone who speaks both tech and comp.
Next step
Ready to Know Where You Stand?
Let's have a 30-minute call. No pitch—just an honest conversation about your team and whether this makes sense for your situation.
Schedule a Discovery CallFAQ
Questions
What data do you use for benchmarking?
I use a combination of industry surveys, direct validation with HR leaders at comparable companies, and my network of CTOs. No single source tells the whole story.
How do you assess individual capabilities?
I use a competency matrix covering technical skills, scope of work, autonomy, communication, and ownership. Input comes from managers, code/work samples where available, and sometimes brief 1:1s.
Will my team know they're being assessed?
Your call. Some clients prefer transparency ("we're doing a compensation review"), others prefer to keep it quiet initially. Both approaches work—we'll discuss what makes sense for your situation.
What if we can't afford the recommended adjustments?
That's why I provide two scenarios. The conservative option focuses on highest-risk/highest-impact adjustments first. Some information is better than none—at least you'll know your exposure.
Do you work with teams outside Latin America?
Yes. The framework applies universally. For US/Europe teams, I use different benchmark sources, but the methodology is the same.
What's the ROI on this?
Replacing a senior engineer costs 6-12 months of salary (recruiting, ramp-up, lost productivity). If this assessment helps you retain even one person, it pays for itself 3-5x.