Manager, Reward & People Operations

Who are we?

UpGuard’s mission is to make life easier for security teams. We meticulously create robust solutions that enable our customers to identify, assess, and remediate cybersecurity risk across their attack surface, vendor ecosystem, workforce, and trust relationships. Our integrated cyber risk posture management platform combines comprehensive security ratings, instant risk assessments, templated security questionnaires, threat intelligence capabilities, and agentic AI to give organizations a holistic view of their risk surface.

Our People team consists of Talent Acquisition & Enablement and Team Member Experience. At UpGuard, we all deserve to work in an environment where we are treated with dignity and respect. Our People team is committed to creating such an environment, where everyone has the opportunity to be themselves and reach their fullest potential. Our Talent Acquisition & Enablement team is committed to finding individuals who embody our values and are passionate about the work they do to help UpGuard continue to grow.

Where does this role fit in?

As part of the People & Culture team, this role brings together reward, benefits, operations, and compliance - building the foundations that enable our people and business to scale confidently. You’ll design smart systems, drive pay and benefits strategy, and ensure compliance across all global locations. This is a hands-on, high-impact role that blends strategy with precision execution in a fast-growing global tech company of 300 people.

• Design, manage, and evolve our global reward strategy - ensuring our remuneration framework reflects market reality, internal equity, and business performance.
• Lead the annual remuneration review process - simplifying, automating, and embedding best-in-class practices across all teams.
• Advise leaders and executives on pay positioning, market trends, and reward as a lever for attraction, retention, and performance.
• Oversee benefits programs - evaluating competitiveness, compliance, and employee experience across multiple geographies.
• Own reward and recognition programs - from company-wide initiatives to local market approaches that celebrate impact and reinforce culture.
• Establish and maintain compliance infrastructure - ensuring all employment practices, policies, and statutory obligations are met across the US, Australia, and other global locations.
• Develop and maintain operational processes - enabling accurate people data, seamless onboarding/offboarding, and audit-ready records.
• Partner with Finance and Legal to align compensation, benefits, and compliance frameworks with fiscal, tax, and regulatory requirements.
• Continuously improve our People Operations systems - introducing automation, self-service, and scalable workflows to support a high-growth environment.

• Deep understanding of global compensation and benefits principles - base pay design, incentive structures, benchmarking, and pay equity.
• Strong grounding in US employment compliance, with the ability to navigate multiple international jurisdictions.
• Experience leading or maturing annual remuneration and benefits cycles in a fast-growing or global organisation.
• Operational acumen - able to design processes and systems that balance compliance, scalability, and efficiency.
• Analytical strength - confident using data and market insights to influence and inform business decisions.
• Proven ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on delivery in a small, fast-moving team.
• Curiosity, pragmatism, and a bias for building systems that scale.

• Experience in a tech or global SaaS environment, where reward, benefits, and operations are strategic levers for growth.
• Familiarity with start-up or scale-up environments, building infrastructure from the ground up.
• A mindset that sees reward as storytelling - connecting pay, benefits, and recognition to performance and purpose.
• Comfort operating with ambiguity while establishing rigorous standards for compliance and operational excellence.

• Monthly Lifestyle subsidy: Use this for financial, physical, and mental well-being.
• WFH set-up allowance: to ensure you have the right environment to work in, we will help you get set up within your first 3 months at UpGuard.
• $1,500 USD annual Learning & Development allowance: to support your career development, all team members will be able to expense development opportunities against this allowance.
• Generous Annual Leave/PTO allowances: time to recharge your batteries.
• 18 weeks paid Parental Leave: irrespective of parenting role.
• Personal Leave allowance: this includes sick & carer’s leave.
• Fully remote working environment: while we have physical offices in Sydney & Hobart, we do not mandate compulsory attendance.
• Top-spec hardware: all team members will be provided with top-spec laptops for their roles.
• Generative AI subsidy: UpGuard provides paid subscriptions for all team members to access generative AI tools to support their work.

#LI-BW1

UpGuard is a Certified Great Place to Work® in the US, Australia, UK and India, establishing its position as a leading global technology employer. 99% of team members agree that UpGuard is a great place to work, apply now to find out why!

As an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.

For applications to positions in the United States, please note, at this time we can only support hiring in the following US states: CA, MD, MA, IL, OR, WA, CO, TX, FL, PA, LA, MO, or DC. 

Before starting work with us, you will need to undertake a national police history check and reference checks. Also please note that at this time, we cannot support candidates requiring visa sponsorship or relocation.