Principal Compensation Partner

Location: Seattle, WA | Employment Type: Full time | Location Type: On-site | Department: People

About the role

Helion is a fusion power company based in Everett, WA, with the mission to build the world's first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited clean electricity. Since its founding in 2013, Helion has raised $1.5 billion from investors including Sam Altman, Mithril, Capricorn Investment Group, Thrive Capital, LightSpeed Venture Capital, SoftBank, and others. The current prototype, Polaris, has achieved record-breaking plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius (13 keV). Helion is iterating toward the world's first fusion power plant, Orion. In this role you will lead Helion's compensation strategy, focusing on evolving equity programs and building scalable compensation structures across technical, corporate, and manufacturing teams. You will partner directly with executive leadership to shape how the company attracts, rewards, and retains employees as it grows, combining strategic ownership with hands‑on program design and execution. This is an individual contributor role with full end‑to‑end ownership of compensation strategy across the company, based onsite in Seattle, WA and reporting to the Senior Director of Talent and People Operations.

Responsibilities

• Build competitive salary, hourly pay, and incentive structures that reward performance and scale with the business
• Own and evolve Helion's equity strategy, including plan design, grant guidelines, and evaluation of future award structures
• Design and own compensation structures specifically for the large hourly manufacturing workforce
• Advise executive leadership on compensation strategies and trade‑offs, supporting Board‑level discussions as needed
• Lead compensation cycles, promotions, equity grants, and offer reviews with Talent and People Business Partners
• Partner with Finance on compensation budgets, equity forecasting, and governance
• Develop clear compensation and equity education that helps employees understand their compensation and equips leaders to communicate effectively

Requirements

• 10+ years of compensation experience, including building and scaling compensation programs in startup or high‑growth environments
• Deep expertise in pre‑IPO equity and stock‑based compensation
• Experience designing compensation structures and incentives for a large hourly workforce
• Strong analytical and financial modeling skills, including market benchmarking, equity forecasting, and scenario analysis
• Hands‑on experience with best‑in‑class compensation systems and platforms, with the judgment to build internal tools and processes where off‑the‑shelf solutions fall short
• Comfort leveraging data and AI‑powered tools to scale analysis and improve decision speed
• Proven ability to advise executives, challenge assumptions, and communicate complex compensation recommendations clearly
• Demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous compensation needs into practical programs, balancing long‑term strategy with hands‑on execution

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision plans for employees and their families
• 31 Days of PTO (21 vacation days and 10 sick days)
• 10 Paid holidays, plus company‑wide winter break
• Up to 5% employer 401(k) match
• Short term disability, long term disability, and life insurance
• Paid parental leave and support (up to 16 weeks)
• Annual wellness stipend

Pay

Compensation range: $200K – $250K