Advisory · Compensation Benchmarking
Compensation benchmarking for data center and AI platform roles
Compensation Benchmarking is a Kernavique Advisory engagement that tells you what commissioning leads, mission-critical engineers and platform engineers cost in Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Columbus, Phoenix and Dallas–Fort Worth. Every figure is tied to a named employer, the exact job title, the location, whether it is base or total compensation, the date we read it and the URL. It is for leaders setting a salary band they will have to defend internally.
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Compensation Benchmarking
What you get
A sourced pay table
Published ranges for the roles in scope, each with the employer, exact title, location, base or total compensation, date read and URL.
A comparison across hubs
How the same role compares across Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Columbus, Phoenix and Dallas–Fort Worth, where the ads allow a fair comparison.
Notes on what the ranges hide
Where one title means different work at different employers, and where a published range is too wide to use as it stands.
A recommended band
A range for your role and location, with the reasoning, that you can put in front of finance or a hiring committee.
How it runs
- Scope the rolesOn the brief call we fix the roles, levels and hubs, and how you will use the result.
- Read the marketWe collect published ranges from live job ads, record each with its source, and drop anything we cannot trace.
- Report and walk throughYou get the table, the notes and the recommended band, and we show you how each number was reached.
When it fits
- You are opening a role in a hub where you have not hired before.
- An offer was turned down and you need to know whether the band was the reason.
- Finance wants evidence for a salary band before it signs off the role.
Who it is for
- Engineering and commissioning consultancies
- MEP and general contractors delivering data center programs
- VP Engineering or Operations at Series A to C AI companies
Questions buyers ask
- Where do your salary figures come from?
- From pay ranges published in live job ads. Each one is recorded with the employer, the exact title, the location, whether it is base or total compensation, the date we read it and the URL. If we cannot trace a figure to an ad, it stays out of the report.
- Why not just use a salary survey?
- With a survey you usually cannot see which employer or which role sits behind a number. A figure tied to a dated ad can be checked by anyone in your organization, which makes it easier to defend.
- Which roles and locations can you benchmark?
- Commissioning leads and managers, mission-critical electrical and mechanical engineers, and AI platform engineers, in Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Columbus, Phoenix and Dallas–Fort Worth. Other roles and locations can be scoped on the brief call where enough ads publish a range.
- How is a benchmarking engagement quoted?
- It is fixed scope, quoted after the brief call, once the roles, levels and hubs are agreed. The scope and the deliverable are set out in writing before work starts.
Terms on this page
- MEP
- Mechanical, electrical and plumbing: the building-services trades and engineering in a data center.
Related services
- AdvisoryMarket IntelligenceHub reports, hiring-market reads and custom research questions on AI infrastructure people, answered with sourced, dated data.
- SearchEngineering searchPermanent commissioning, mission-critical MEP, construction, platform and forward deployed engineers, through a contingent or committed search.
- AdvisoryCapability BlueprintA written org design for an AI platform practice, data center delivery team or expert program: roles, hiring sequence, contract and permanent mix.