Compensation

Compensation philosophy

At Nebulab, we believe in creating a workplace that is honest, transparent, and thriving. Our compensation policy is designed to support you and our mission. We aim to ensure fairness, adequacy, and competitiveness by localizing your compensation relative to local salary standards and the cost of living. Our packages are designed to attract and retain top talent, ensuring you feel valued and motivated.
We've been around long enough to know that a well thought out compensation philosophy it's a fundamental part of company culture and it's crucially important to find people that are aligned with our  ⁠⁠Values⁠ .

Support for Nebulab's business objectives

Our compensation strategy is designed to align with and support Nebulab's business objectives, ensuring we can continue to grow and succeed together.

Equity among employees, roles, and locations

We strive for equity among all employees, across different roles and locations. Your compensation is structured to ensure fairness and competitiveness.

Market competitiveness

We offer competitive compensation packages to attract and retain top talent like you. Our goal is to pay salaries between the fiftieth and seventy-fifth percentiles of reputable industry studies, adjusting them based on your specific role, market trends, Nebulab's strategic goals, and hiring competitiveness.

Yearly reviews

Salary reviews are conducted yearly to assess and adjust compensation in line with your professional growth, contributions to Nebulab, and changes in the market.

Clarity and transparency

We're here to ensure everything is clear and transparent for you. Our compensation policy is straightforward and easy to understand. If you ever have any questions or need clarification, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Promotion of proactivity and self-organization

We value and incentivize your proactive behaviors, self-organization, and collaboration within our team and with our clients. These traits are given the highest priority when it comes to your salary adjustments.

Work-life balance

We offer benefits and flexibility to help you maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life. This includes generous vacation days and flexible working hours, allowing you to recharge and perform at your best.

Types of compensation

Our compensation offerings are guided by our policy and growth objectives, providing a balance of short- and long-term rewards based on both your growth and the company's growth.

Fixed compensation

Our fixed compensation is your dependable income that forms the foundation of your pay package. It includes your base salary, which is consistently paid and determined by your role, experience, and progress within the company. This compensation is designed to provide stability and ensure fairness across all roles and levels.
  • Base salary: Your base salary is a stable, fixed amount paid regularly, determined by your experience, role, and individual growth within the company. It is based on local salary standards to ensure competitiveness and fairness relative to the cost of living. Using our Career Framework, every possible level for every role has a set base salary. As you grow and progress through levels, your base salary increases.
  • Local cost of labor: For employees not residing in Italy or those with consultancy contracts, Nebulab covers your taxes and contract maintenance fees, providing you with the highest cost associated with self-employement in your country.
  • Welfare plan: We aim to boost your wealth through a comprehensive welfare plan that includes benefits like a company car, meal vouchers, wellness plans, and fringe benefits for material goods. The welfare plan is currently in a testing phase.

Variable compensation

 ⁠⁠Variable compensation⁠  is our way of rewarding your contributions and aligning our success with yours. This part of your pay is flexible and includes profit-sharing opportunities and performance-based bonuses, allowing you to earn more based on your impact and the company’s overall performance.
  • Profit sharing New Button (coming in 2025): We involve you in our financial success through a profit-sharing program that distributes a portion of the company's profits quarterly, based on overall financial performance. This program is designed to align our goals and reward your contributions.
  • Individual performance-based bonuses (coming back in 2025): We offer bonuses tied to individual performance, distributed annually based on specific growth and performance objectives.

Perks

Everything listed in  ⁠⁠Perks and Benefits⁠  is what we consider "perks" or things that might make Nebulab the perfect company for you to work in.
We won't make another list here but you should know already: from hardware, to schedule flexibility and learning stipends, to annual team retreats, they all make the Nebulab culture.

How base salary is determined

At Nebulab, we have a structured and transparent approach to determining base salaries for new hires or ongoing team members. Given that base salary makes up for the majority of your compensation, we wanted to provide extra clarity and explain the whole process in detail.

1️⃣ Retrieve statistical compensation data

We use industry benchmarks to guide our salary decisions, ensuring that our pay ranges are both fair and competitive. These benchmarks are based on data from similar roles and industries, giving us a clear picture of what the market looks like. This approach helps us align our compensation with current trends, so you can feel confident that your base salary reflects your role, experience, and the broader job market.
Our main point of reference is the  Mercer  compensation benchmark (provided to us by  Lattice⁠ ) but data isn't always perfect so we might use other sources from time to time to make sure the data reflects our compensation philosophy.

After retrieving the benchmark data, we choose a number, usually somewhere between the 50th and the 75th percentile. The actual number really depends on strategic hiring choices in Nebulab.

2️⃣ Create a band for every role

A number alone would not be enough to create a band so that's exactly what we do next.
The compensation band is established by extending the selected midpoint for the role and location with a ±15% range around it.
In practical terms, this means that bands for every role and location are determined as:
  • Minimum: -15%
  • Target: midpoint selected in 1️⃣
  • Maximum: +15%

3️⃣ Pick your position within the band

When every role has a localized band, we can assign a band for each employee, depending on role and location, and assign a specific base salary according to experience.
For new hires, we use the hiring process to asses their experience and job role. For employees, we use performance reviews to regularly asses their experience. On both occasions, everyone has a band and a salary moving within that band.
As a rule of thumb, your position within the band is determined by their familiarity with the role:
  • Starting out or learning in the role: If you're starting out in the company or new to the role, you will begin at the lower end of the band.
  • Meeting the role: if you're meeting the role's expectations, you'll be positioned in the middle of the band.
  • Exceeding the role: if you're exceeding expectations can reach the higher end of the band. In case you've maxed out, progressing further should be a discussion with your manager.

4️⃣ Review regularly

We run the whole process regularly (at least once a year) from top to bottom (starting at 1️⃣) in order to ensure compensation is always fair and competitive.
The review of the bands happens during compensation reviews where we:
  • check bands are still aligned to market
  • align company strategy with compensation bands
  • evaluate fair distribution of employee salaries within the company
  • adjust individual salaries according to experience/promotions
A particularly important event is when you earn a promotion. When promoted, you transition from the end of your current compensation band to the beginning of the next higher band. This jump recognizes your advancement and new responsibilities. This approach treats career steps and salary increases as a continuum, ensuring data-driven decisions reflect your true value. Note that, depending on budget allocation, this might only be a partial bump that takes you closer to your target salary.

How local cost of labor is determined

If you're a contractor employee, you'll be assigned a percentage that represents your country's local cost of labor. That percentage will be added to your base salary to cover your employment costs.
This is the straightforward process we use to determine the cost of labor percentage:
    .1Use online renowned cost simulators from Employer of Record service providers such as Remote or Deel.
    .2Retrieve the mandatory costs of employment associated with the employer given a base salary.
    .3Track these costs in our records as a percentage on top of the base salary.
We show the base salary separately from the local cost percentage to keep things fair and easy to compare between payroll and contractor teammates. This way, you can see your true base salary without any added adjustments, making it easier to estimate your employee salary at the end of the year.

Finding your compensation data

Whenever you want to have a complete overview of your compensation at Nebulab, you'll need to leverage two different tools.

Lattice Total Compensation

We use Lattice Total Compensation to provide you with a comprehensive view of your compensation package. This tool helps you understand the full value of your base salary and variable pay in one place.
Here's what you can find in Lattice Total Compensation:
  • Your compensation band placement: View your current position within your compensation band, reflecting your experience and performance.
  • Cash pay details: See the breakdown of your base pay, variable pay, and any target bonuses.
  • Future projections: Get a forward-looking view of your compensation over the next 12 months based on current data.
This tool increases transparency, helping you see how your compensation is set and its full value.

Bob Payroll

If you ever need a detailed overview of your compensation and how it's split up into different forms of compensation, you can find it in Bob, under the Payroll section of your personal profile.
Please note that there are several tabs to explore, each providing specific details about different aspects of your compensation such as:
  • Salary: This tab provides detailed information about your base salary, local cost of labor, salary pay frequency, and salary pay period. It also provides historical data in the table view where you can track your salary growth in Nebulab.
  • Variable pay and Actual payments: This tab details your variable and actual payments. It includes performance bonuses and any other variable compensation you receive, providing a comprehensive overview of your earnings beyond the base salary.
  • Entitlements: This tab tracks your welfare benefits and other entitlements, such as fringe benefits and meal vouchers. It provides a clear summary of all the additional benefits you receive, enhancing your overall compensation package.

Compensation reviews

We use  Lattice⁠  to manage compensation reviews. We commit to reviewing everyone's compensation package once a year, but we may do it more often if market situations change dramatically and/or we need to adjust the general compensation strategy.
In principle, compensation reviews involve:
  • Evaluation of company health and budgeting: we carefully allocate funds to ensure we can provide competitive salaries while maintaining financial health. Depending on the budget, salary adjustments might be spread over time rather than given all at once to balance our resources effectively.
  • Your job title: the job title plays a significant role in your compensation review. If you receive a promotion, you will get a salary bump, ideally jumping to the beginning of your new salary band associated with the new role. However, depending on budget allocation, this might only be a partial bump that takes you closer to your target salary.
  • Your performance: we value your performance and commitment. While some promotions may take years, we still want to reward exceptional performance. Your performance will be reflected in an advancement within your salary band. With multiple reviews, this will bring you from the beginning to the higher end of the salary band.
  • Market data: if market data indicates that salaries in your region have increased, making your current salary non-competitive, we will adjust your salary accordingly.

Comparing compensation packages

Compensation is a very intricate topic and it's really easy to dismiss a compensation package as "clearly higher" or "clearly lower" than another package, while they might actually be very similar. We know and understand that as most things money-related, it’s tempting to think the grass is greener on the other side. This is why transparency is so important to us, it allows you to have everything you need to understand the work you're doing and how you're being compensated for it.
Whenever you're faced with a decision, to get a true picture, make sure you’re looking at salaries for similar roles and considering all the factors. For contractors, it’s crucial to include the local cost of labor, taxes, and extra costs that come with your contract. Keeping these in mind can make a big difference in your overall financial health.

Salary decreases

We never decrease salaries, even in the off chance of a demotion or unfavorable market conditions. Our strategy is to aim for long-term fairness. If you are being paid above the expectations for your title, market and/or recent performance, we'll simply take that into account in the subsequent compensation reviews.
One exception to this rule is if someone relocates for the long term. Since this is a deliberate decision, we'll work with the teammate to design a competitive offer based on their new job market. If you're thinking about relocating, speak to your manager first to understand how to best approach the situation.