Job Architecture Overview

Your job architecture defines how roles are organized and structured across your company. In Pave, a well-designed job architecture is the foundation for fair compensation, career progression, and market benchmarking. This guide explains the building blocks of job architecture and how they work together.

Core Concepts: Jobs, Grades, and Pay Zones

Pave supports three organizational frameworks that can work independently or together:

Jobs

Jobs represent specific roles with distinct responsibilities and requirements. Each job is uniquely defined by a combination of:

• Function - The broad department or area (e.g., Engineering, Sales, Marketing)
• Family - A grouping within a function (e.g., Backend Engineering, Field Sales)
• Ladder - A ladder is the grouping of jobs within a family with a singular progression, like Software Engineering - IC ladder or Backend ladder in Software Engineering family.
• Track - Specialized paths within a family
  • IC — Individual Contributor, specialist who advances without managing people
  • Manager — People manager, responsible for leading and developing a team
  • Executive — Senior leadership roles at the VP level and above
  • Professional — Business and operational roles that don't fit a technical or management track (e.g., Finance, Legal, HR, Recruiting)
  • L — Used when IC and Manager aren't cleanly separable
  • Support — Customer-facing support or operations roles
• Rank - The seniority level within that ladder (e.g., 2, 3, 4)

When to use: Jobs are ideal when you want precise control over each role's compensation and need to benchmark specific positions against market data.

Grades

A compensation grade is simply a grouping of jobs that have the same range for compensation. Instead of defining compensation for each individual job, you group similarly valued jobs into grades and assign the grade a range.

Companies implement grades when they get to a certain size and the operational burden of managing an individual range for every job becomes too great. Grades can also be implemented to ensure internal equity for jobs that the company wants to pay the same way, no matter what the benchmarking data says about their market value.

Key grade properties:

• Name - The grade identifier (e.g., "IC5", "Manager 2", "L6")
• Grade Group - Related grades grouped together (often by track)
• Rank - Numeric ordering for level hierarchy

When to use: Grades simplify administration when many roles should have similar compensation and make it easier to manage pay equity across the organization.

Pay Zones

Pay Zones adjust compensation based on geographic location or cost of labor.

When to use: Pay zones are essential for companies with employees in multiple locations with different costs of living, or when you want to offer location-based pay adjustments.

Understanding Job Structure: The Hierarchy

Jobs in Pave are built from nested components. Here's how they relate:

Function (e.g., "Engineering")
  └─ Family (e.g., "Backend Engineering")
      └─ Ladder (e.g., "Individual Contributor")
          └─ Track (e.g., "Staff Track" or "Principal Track")
              └─ Rank (e.g., 3, 4, 5)
                  └─ Level (e.g., "P3", "P4"
                      └─ Title (e.g., "Senior Backend Engineer")

Function

The highest level of organization. Functions represent major departments or areas of your business.

Examples:

• Engineering
• Product
• Sales
• Marketing
• Operations

How it appears in Pave:

• Primary filter for organizing jobs

Family

A subdivision within a function that groups related roles together. Families help organize specializations or sub-departments.

Examples:

• Within Engineering: Backend Engineering, Frontend Engineering, Data Engineering, Platform Engineering
• Within Sales: Field Sales, Inside Sales, Sales Development, Sales Operations
• Within Marketing: Product Marketing, Content Marketing, Performance Marketing

How it appears in Pave:

• Benchmarking: Maps to market data job families
• Filtering: Organize and find jobs quickly

Ladder

The career track or progression path for a role. Ladders define how someone advances through increasing levels of responsibility.

Common Ladder Types:

• Individual Contributor (IC) - Individual technical or specialized contributors
• Manager - People managers
• Executive - Senior leadership roles

How it appears in Pave:

• Defines career progression paths
• Helps structure levels appropriately
• Job ladders are mapped to survey job families & levels
• Auto-smoothing happens at the ladder level to ensure proper pay progression

Track

A specialized path within a family. Tracks define career progressions:

Common Track Types:

• IC — Individual Contributor track
• Manager — People manager track
• Executive — Senior leadership track
• Professional — Business and operational roles (e.g., Finance, Legal, HR, Recruiting)
• L — Used when IC and Manager aren't cleanly separable
• Support — Customer-facing support or operations roles

How it appears in Pave:

• Appears in job details and filtering
• Helps differentiate career paths
• Can affect benchmarking and pay ranges

Rank

A numeric value representing seniority within a ladder. Higher ranks = more senior roles.

Examples:

• Rank 1: Entry level / Junior
• Rank 2: Mid-level
• Rank 3: Senior
• Rank 4: Staff / Senior Manager
• Rank 5: Principal / Director
• Rank 6: Distinguished / VP

How it appears in Pave:

• Determines sort order in job lists
• Drives level progression expectations
• Used in auto-smoothing to ensure proper pay progression

Level

The level identifier for a specific rank within a ladder.

Examples:

• IC1 (Rank 1)
• IC2 (Rank 2)
• IC3 (Rank 3)
• M1 (Manager Rank 1)
• M2 (Manager Rank 2)

How it appears in Pave:

• Displayed in employee records
• Shown in Team View and Total Rewards
• Used in offer letters

Title

The specific job title an employee holds. Titles are often more descriptive than levels.

Examples:

• "Senior Backend Engineer"
• "Staff Product Manager"
• "Director of Enterprise Sales"

How it appears in Pave:

• Employee's official role designation
• Appears in all employee-facing views
• Can be used in HRIS matching

Visual Guide: How Job Components Work Together

Example 1: Individual Contributor Path

Function: Engineering
  Family: Backend Engineering
    Ladder: Individual Contributor
      Track: Staff Track
        Rank: 4
          Level: Staff Engineer
            Title: Staff Backend Engineer

This job is:

• In the Engineering function
• Specialized in Backend Engineering
• On the Individual Contributor career ladder
• Following the Staff Track (deep technical specialist path)
• At Rank 4 (staff level seniority)
• Named Staff Engineer as the level
• Given the title Staff Backend Engineer

Example 2: Management Path

Function: Sales
  Family: Field Sales
    Ladder: Manager
      Track: [none - simple structure]
        Rank: 3
          Level: Sales Manager
            Title: Enterprise Sales Manager

This job is:

• In the Sales function
• Specialized in Field Sales
• On the Manager career ladder
• No track specified (simpler structure)
• At Rank 3 (manager level seniority)
• Named Sales Manager as the level
• Given the title Enterprise Sales Manager

Jobs vs. Grades: Which Approach to Use?

Jobs-Based Approach

How it works: Each unique role gets its own compensation band. You define pay ranges for "Senior Backend Engineer," "Senior Frontend Engineer," "Senior Product Manager" separately.

Advantages:

• Maximum precision and control
• Easy to benchmark specific roles
• Can reflect role-specific market conditions
• Clearer for employees to understand their exact band

Disadvantages:

• More administrative overhead
• Can lead to pay inequity if not managed carefully
• Harder to make broad adjustments
• More complex to maintain

Best for:

• Smaller companies (< 500 employees)
• Companies with highly specialized roles
• Organizations that need precise market benchmarking
• Teams with significant role-to-role variation

Grades-Based Approach

How it works: Define pay ranges for grade levels (e.g., Grade 5, Grade 6) and assign multiple jobs to each grade. All jobs in Grade 6 share the same compensation band, regardless of function or family.

Advantages:

• Simpler administration
• Easier to maintain pay equity
• Clear career progression
• Faster to make company-wide adjustments
• Scales well as company grows

Disadvantages:

• Less precision for individual roles
• May not reflect market differences between roles at same level
• Requires careful job leveling decisions
• Can feel rigid for unique roles

Best for:

• Larger companies (500+ employees)
• Organizations prioritizing internal equity
• Companies with clear leveling frameworks
• Teams wanting simpler administration

Pay Zones: Geographic Compensation Adjustments

Pay zones allow you to adjust compensation based on location without creating entirely separate job structures.

How Pay Zones Work

Instead of defining separate bands for each location, you:

1. Create a base band (often your highest cost location or a national average)
2. Define pay zones with adjustment multipliers
3. Assign employees to pay zones based on their location

Example:

Base band for Senior Engineer: $150K - $175K - $200K

Pay Zone: San Francisco (1.15 multiplier)
  → $172.5K - $201.25K - $230K

Pay Zone: Austin (0.95 multiplier)
  → $142.5K - $166.25K - $190K

Pay Zone: Remote Tier 2 (0.85 multiplier)
  → $127.5K - $148.75K - $170K

Pay Zone Properties

Name - Descriptive identifier (e.g., "San Francisco Bay Area")

Description - Optional details about the zone

Geo Grouping - Geographic region or category

Relative Value (Discount) - The multiplier applied to base bands:

• 1.0 = Same as primary (100%)
• < 1.0 = Lower than primary pay zone (e.g., 0.85 = 85% of primary pay zone)
• > 1.0 = Higher than base (e.g., 1.15 = 115% of primary pay zone)

Is Catch-All - Whether this zone captures employees not matched to other zones

Pay Zones in Practice

How employees are matched to pay zones:

1. Automatic matching based on location fields from your HRIS
2. Manual matching rules you define
3. Default/catch-all zone for unmatched employees

How pay zones appear in Pave:

• Bands view: Filter and view bands by pay zone
• Employee matching: See which employees fall into each zone
• Team View: Managers see location-adjusted bands
• Total Rewards: Employees see their location's band

Jobs, Grades, and Pay Zones Together

The three concepts can work in combination:

Jobs + Pay Zones

Define compensation for each specific role, adjusted by location.

Example:

• Senior Backend Engineer in San Francisco: $172.5K - $230K
• Senior Backend Engineer in Austin: $142.5K - $190K
• Senior Frontend Engineer in San Francisco: $167.5K - $220K

Grades + Pay Zones

Define compensation by grade level, adjusted by location.

Example:

• Grade 6 in San Francisco: $172.5K - $230K
• Grade 6 in Austin: $142.5K - $190K
• All Grade 6 roles share these bands regardless of function

Related Articles

• Manage & Edit Jobs: Create and modify job architecture
• Manage Pay Zones: Set up location-based compensation adjustments
• Manage & Edit Grade Structure: Work with grades-based compensation
• Create & Manage Band Sets: Build compensation bands using your architecture
• Match Employees: Assign employees to jobs, grades, and pay zones