The Role:We are seeking a Director, Sales Compensation and Planning to lead one of the most strategic operating levers in our go-to-market organization: how we design, operationalize, communicate, and continuously improve sales compensation and quota planning.
This is an explicit people leadership role. The ideal candidate will coach, and develop talent while also serving as a hands-on strategic operator who can move fluidly between high-level plan design, detailed modeling, stakeholder alignment, and frontline problem-solving.
The primary components of this role are:- Sales Compensation Design & Operations: This role will own end-to-end sales compensation strategy and design, oversee annual and in-year planning, and ensure high-quality execution from modeling through rollout, field enablement, and ongoing governance. This leader will partner closely with Sales Leadership, Finance, Legal, HR, and business systems partners to build plans that are aligned to company goals, field friendly, analytically rigorous, and operationally executable. The role requires strong executive communication, the ability to translate analysis into insights and influence, and the judgment to balance seller motivation, cost discipline, and business strategy.
- Sales Capacity Planning & Quota Allocation: Own company's sales capacity model encompassing headcount tracking, hiring and attrition forecasting, and productivity. Develop and maintain the Quota Allocation Model, including ramp quota structures across a multi-year tenure model. Own the target setting process cascading from model to sales organization wide targets.
- Performance Management: Drive continuous performance management by analyzing rep attainment, payout outcomes, performance distributions, and trends, translating these insights into actionable recommendations to optimize plan design and seller productivity.
Detailed responsibilities:
- Own sales compensation strategy, plan design, and annual refresh cycles across applicable sales roles, including plan mechanics, measures, accelerators, kickers, SPIFs, and policy guardrails.
- Lead the planning process end to end, including project management, timelines, stakeholder intake, decision framing, draft iterations, approvals, and rollout readiness.
- Build scenario models and perform pre-plan and in-year analysis to evaluate plan effectiveness, expected payout outcomes, attainment distributions, and cost implications.
- Partner closely with Finance to support their commission cost modeling, actuals vs. plan reviews, variance analysis, and forward-looking commission expense scenarios.
- Work in close partnership with the commissions team that manage Xactly administration and monthly payout processes to ensure plan design is executable, approvals are clean, and ongoing operations run smoothly.
- Partner with Legal and cross-functional stakeholders to draft, review, and finalize compensation plan language, policy documentation, and exception frameworks.
- Lead sales compensation rollout and field enablement through presentations, reference materials, leader preparation, and direct communication with sales teams.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to sales leaders by building strong relationships, answering field questions, resolving ambiguity, and guiding exception handling with clear recommendations.
- Design and manage SPIF programs, including structure design, cost estimation, approvals, operational setup, tracking, and communication to the field.
- Translate analysis into influence by shaping recommendations, aligning stakeholders, and presenting clear tradeoffs to senior sales and finance leaders.
- Own Sales Capacity planning and modelling, with attention to trends in the data, the underlying business itself and external market factors.
- Perform routine capacity planning updates and reporting, as well as ad hoc reporting and scenario modelling.
- Own quota allocation and target-setting, including analysis, recommendations, and incorporating sales leader input. Target setting should be grounded in capacity model outputs.
- Drive continuous performance management by analyzing rep attainment, payout outcomes, performance distributions, and trends, translating these insights into actionable recommendations to optimize plan design and seller productivity.
- Prepare executive and Board-level materials related to sales compensation, quota planning, and performance management.
- Coach, and develop team member(s) while building a high-accountability culture grounded in rigor, responsiveness, and continuous improvement.
- Leverage AI, automation, and modern analytical tooling to improve planning workflows, speed up analysis, reduce manual effort, and elevate decision quality.
Required Skills & Qualifications- 7-10 years of progressive experience in sales compensation, sales operations, revenue operations, finance, or closely related functions, with direct ownership of sales compensation strategy, design, and operations.
- Deep hands-on experience owning end-to-end sales compensation programs in a B2B SaaS or recurring-revenue environment.
- Strong expertise in compensation modeling, capacity and quota planning, attainment analysis, incentive operations, and exception management.
- Demonstrated success partnering cross-functionally with Sales, Finance, Legal, HR, and systems or commissions teams.
- Strong project management skills with the ability to run complex planning cycles, coordinate multiple stakeholders, and deliver against deadlines.
- Advanced analytical and data modeling capability, including the ability to turn complex analysis into clear business recommendations and executive-ready narratives.
- Strong executive communication skills, including experience preparing materials for senior leadership and Board-level audiences.
- Experience with Salesforce, Anaplan, Google Workplace and strong spreadsheet/modeling skills; familiarity with Xactly is strongly preferred.
- Proven ability to build trust with sales leaders and influence decisions through insight, credibility, and strong judgment.
- Experience leading people, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and team development.
Ideal Candidate Profile- Has owned sales compensation as a primary responsibility and knows how to balance strategic design with day-to-day operational execution.
- Experience building and running capacity and quota allocation models.
- Brings a broader sales operations mindset, with compensation as the anchor but enough planning, analytics, and stakeholder range to shape business decisions beyond plan mechanics alone.
- Is highly effective in ambiguous, cross-functional environments where success depends on partnership, judgment, and follow-through.
- Is an AI power user who actively applies AI and automation to improve workflows, accelerate analysis, and raise the leverage of the team.
Base Hiring Range: $130,000-$220,000
In accordance with Colorado's Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB 19-085) the approximate compensation range for this role in Colorado is listed above. Final compensation for this role will be determined by various factors, such as knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Life at Ping:We believe in and facilitate a flexible, collaborative work environment. We're growing quickly, but remain true to the innovative, can-do startup values that got us here. Most importantly, we keep hiring talented, smart, fun, and genuinely nice people because that's who we want to succeed with every day.
Here are just a few of the things that make Ping special:- A company culture that empowers you to do your best work.
- Employee Resource Groups that create a sense of belonging for everyone.
- Regular company and team bonding events.
- Competitive benefits and perks.
- Global volunteering and community initiatives
Our Benefits: - Generous PTO & Holiday Schedule
- Parental Leave
- Progressive Healthcare Options
- Retirement Programs
- Opportunity for Education Reimbursement
- Commuter Offset (Specific locations)
