Sales Compensation Manager

 

Overview:

The Sales Compensation Manager (L6) leads complex compensation operations workstreams that drive reliability, scalability, and risk reduction across the sales compensation function. You will own end-to-end commission administration for a large payee portfolio, ensuring flawless execution across payroll submissions, SOX compliance, exception management, and stakeholder delivery, operating at the frontier of what AI and modern tooling make possible so that automation is embedded by default, not bolted on. Operating with a 6–12 month horizon, you’ll independently scope and solve moderately complex problems, influence Directors and Sr. Directors, and raise the bar for the team through mentorship, enablement, and operational discipline with strong automation.

The impact you will have:

• Own end-to-end sales compensation administration for a large payee portfolio with full accountability for accuracy, timeliness, SOX compliance, and high-quality execution across participant setup, plan distribution, calculation, payment readiness, and payroll submission.
• Lead payroll submission for one or more GEOs with 100% accuracy, timeliness, and SOX compliance, including zero-pay confirmations, audit checkpoints, and evidence completeness across controls.
• Proactively detect anomalies and apply conservative holds to prevent overpayment; operationalise Exception Committee items with traceable implementation and reduced exception cycle time, leveraging AI-powered anomaly detection and predictive payment risk scoring to identify issues before they reach payroll.
• Validate data across source-of-truth systems (Xactly, SFDC, HRIS, Anaplan, etc.), investigate issues such as incorrect credits, quota misalignments, and payout exceptions, and deliver actionable recommendations to leadership, deploying agentic validation workflows and LLM-based solutions to reduce manual reconciliation and improve decision quality.
• Lead large or moderately ambiguous projects independently, balancing multiple priorities, defining clear ownership across contributors, and creating repeatable inspection mechanisms (dashboards, check-ins, trackers) that consistently deliver outcomes on time.
• Influence business partners across Sales Ops, Rev Ops, Payroll, HR, Legal, Accounting, Finance, etc. by framing decisions in terms of field experience, risk, and audit compliance, acting as the trusted first point of contact in escalation paths.
• Own and advance the team’s automation roadmap, driving adoption of AI across commission operations workflows, including intelligent anomaly detection, AI-assisted exception triage, automated evidence generation, and agentic validation of data across source systems, identifying where AI creates real leverage and building repeatable operating rhythms, standardized SOPs, and audit-ready documentation that improve quality, speed, and consistency while reducing execution risk.
• Enable the team through templates, playbooks, evidence packs, and exception trackers, mentoring analysts (including offshore resources) to raise execution quality beyond individual scope.

What we look for:

• 10+ years of end-to-end sales compensation administration and commissions system operations, spanning payroll submissions, SOX control operations, exception modelling/recalcs, and stakeholder deliverables.
• Advanced proficiency with Xactly (administration, configuration, reporting, troubleshooting) and Excel/Google Workspace for complex modelling, analysis, and insight generation.
• Strong data validation skills across source-of-truth systems (SFDC, HRIS, Anaplan, etc.) with demonstrated ability to detect anomalies, perform complex commission modelling, and translate findings into clear recommendations.
• Demonstrated program management experience across payroll and compliance/exception workflows, able to set and run cadences, produce audit evidence packs, define escalation paths, and maintain continuous audit readiness.
• Understanding of SaaS go-to-market compensation models, including quotas, OTI, accelerators, overlays, SPIFFs, MBOs, and how plan mechanics influence seller behaviour.
• Ability to influence cross-functional partners (Sales Ops, Rev Ops, Payroll, HR, Legal, Accounting, Finance, etc.) by proposing trade-offs, framing risk, and driving shared outcomes without direct authority.
• Proven ability to bring structure to ambiguity, scoping complex problems, balancing speed with rigour, and delivering consistent, control-minded execution with minimal oversight.
• Comfort prompting and evaluating LLMs as part of daily work, with a practical point of view on where AI creates real leverage in compensation operations versus where human judgment remains essential. Experience deploying AI or automation solutions, whether through vendor tooling, custom workflows, or agentic systems, to measurably improve speed, accuracy, or coverage. Partners with internal AI tooling teams to identify and deploy solutions that reduce manual work and scale the function.
• The role requires maintaining a consistent 3–4 hour overlap with U.S. Pacific Time (PST) during your workday.