In Good Company: Caitlin Carney
Cait is three months into her role as a Principal Compensation Analyst, but ten years into a career she once swore she’d never touch. (“I told my professor I never wanted to work in compensation. Then he hired me.”)
Now she loves it — because in the real world, comp isn’t numbers in a vacuum. It’s people, conversations, trade‑offs, and the kind of puzzles she actually enjoys solving.
Outside of work, Cait is usually in motion: hiking, doing yoga, volunteering with Girls Inc., or hunting down vintage shops that look like they were curated by a very stylish grandmother (she even has furniture from The Vampire Diaries set!)
And once, during yoga at an aquarium, a group of teens became convinced she was Ellie Kemper. They took pictures. She did not win the argument.
Cait grew up a bike ride away from the beach in Florida, which explains her calm steadiness and her natural tilt toward sunlight. It also explains why she slips easily into kindness. Her favorite reminder — one she returns to often — is, “You could be the juiciest peach in the world, but not everyone is going to like peaches.” It’s not personal, she says. “As long as you’re kind and respectful, that’s what matters.”
Mason appealed to her for that same reason: kindness. “Everyone I met during interviews was so genuinely warm,” she says. With family nearby in Virginia and D.C., joining the university felt like the right kind of shift. What she didn’t expect was how many moving pieces Mason carries behind the scenes. “Balancing state requirements, university needs, and reorg work… it’s a lot,” she says. “But it’s interesting. I like figuring out how it all fits together.”
If she could instantly learn a new skill, it would be French. A recent trip to Paris sealed that. “It’s such a beautiful language,” she says. Spanish she can manage. French is the dream.
Remote work doesn’t feel isolating, she says—compensation involves talking to plenty of people all day. But if you ever want her to make the long drive from Atlanta to Fairfax, there is one sure strategy.
Have a good cheeseburger waiting.
She won’t say no to that.
This article was written by Ray Dominguez, Communications Specialist.