Director, Incentive Compensation

Overview

This role focuses on incentive compensation strategy and operations, including annual incentive planning, commission operations, plan administration, and ongoing plan performance analysis. You will work cross-functionally with Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, FP&A, Accounting, Legal, People, Payroll, and Revenue Operations to ensure incentives drive the right outcomes and payouts are accurate and timely.

Responsibilities

• Lead annual incentive planning across Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, and other eligible go-to-market roles.
  • Define performance measures, pay mix, payout curves, accelerators, and plan rules in partnership with leaders.
• Track, report, and partner with Accounting to accrue non GTM bonus plans, including executive bonuses.
• Ensure incentives reward the right outcomes.
  • Evaluate how pricing, contract terms, customer commitments, usage, and deal margin affect payouts.
  • Recommend plan changes that support growth without encouraging poor deal economics.
• Build and test compensation models.
  • Model how attainment levels and plan structures impact employee earnings and company costs.
  • Present tradeoffs and support leadership in reaching decisions.
• Own commission operations end to end, including:
  • Calculation, validation, reconciliation, approvals, and delivery to Payroll.
  • Ensure payouts are accurate and on time, statements are clear, and payout questions are resolved promptly.
• Maintain plan documentation and consistent policies for crediting, ramp periods, guarantees, role changes, adjustments, and exceptions.
  • Work with People, Legal, Accounting, and Payroll on controls and approvals.
• Assess whether incentive plans are working.
  • Track attainment, payout distribution, commission costs, and the behaviors each plan encourages.
  • Separate actual results from forecast assumptions and convert findings into recommendations.
• Improve compensation systems and data quality.
  • Partner with Revenue Operations and business systems partners on requirements, testing, and data quality.
  • Use automation and AI where it reduces manual work, improves accuracy, and enhances customer experience.
• Lead and develop the compensation team.
  • Set clear responsibilities, review work, and coach people through complex questions.
  • Help managers and employees understand plans through rollout materials and ongoing communication.
• Partner with FP&A and Accounting on commission forecasts, accruals, reconciliations, and explanations of variance.
  • Prepare clear analysis for senior leadership.

Requirements

• 8+ years of relevant experience in incentive compensation, incentive design, or related Finance or Revenue Operations roles, with ownership of both plan design and administration.
• Experience managing and developing a team, ideally including at least two years of people management.
• Experience designing and operating incentive programs in a SaaS, technology, or similarly complex business.
• Strong Excel or Google Sheets skills.
  • Build scenario models, trace calculations to source, and identify when assumptions do not hold.
• Practical experience with incentive compensation platforms and Salesforce data.
  • Understand connections between contract terms, bookings, billing, and payouts.
• Sound business judgment.
  • Ability to challenge proposals constructively and balance employee motivation, financial discipline, and ease of administration.
• Clear communication with executives, managers, and employees.
  • Ability to explain complex plans or difficult payout decisions without losing the audience.
• High care and discipline with sensitive information, especially during busy payout or planning cycles.
• Experience with consumption-based revenue, margin-based incentives, expansion and retention plans.
• Direct experience with commission management platforms (Xactly preferred, or equivalent SPM systems like CaptivateIQ, Spiff).

Preferred Qualifications

• None listed.

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive perks and benefits, including health & wellness and equity.
• For US based applicants: The US base salary range for this full-time position is $180,000-$270,000 + equity + benefits.
• Salary ranges are determined by role, level and location.

Location

• US based applicants (additional location details not provided in the posting).