Director, Sales Compensation

Company Description

Organizations everywhere struggle under the crushing costs and complexities of “solutions” that promise to simplify their lives. To create a better experience for their customers and employees. To help them grow. Software is a choice that can make or break a business. Create better or worse experiences. Propel or throttle growth. Business software has become a blocker instead of ways to get work done.

There’s another option. Freshworks. With a fresh vision for how the world works.

At Freshworks, we build uncomplicated service software that delivers exceptional customer and employee experiences. Our enterprise-grade solutions are powerful, yet easy to use, and quick to deliver results. Our people-first approach to AI eliminates friction, making employees more effective and organizations more productive. Over 72,000 companies, including Bridgestone, New Balance, Nucor, S&P Global, and Sony Music, trust Freshworks’ customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) software to fuel customer loyalty and service efficiency. And, over 4,500 Freshworks employees make this possible, all around the world.

Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us.

Job Description

As part of our continued growth, we are seeking a strategic and experienced leader to join our Global Sales Compensation team. This role will lead the design, development, and management of incentive compensation plans across all sales functions. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in sales compensation design, sales planning, and performance analytics, with a strong ability to lead cross-functional initiatives that deliver measurable business outcomes. 

What You'll Do: 

• Lead the design and governance of competitive, scalable, and performance-driven incentive compensation plans aligned with company goals and the evolving sales landscape.
• Drive the sales compensation strategy and planning for all sales roles, including AEs, AMs, BDRs, Pre-Sales, Channel, and Customer Success. 
• Partner with Finance, RevOps, and HR to deliver quarterly performance reviews, dashboards, and attainment analytics. 
• Drive performance modeling and recommend incentive plan changes, contests, and metrics to align behavior with GTM strategy. 
• Participate in the annual GTM planning cycle, including target setting process, commissions forecasting, and headcount alignment. 
• Serve as an internal consultant to business leaders and the executive leadership team on matters related to global compensation, including job/role review, motivators, sales incentives design, and administration. 
• Build and maintain complex compensation models to analyze plan effectiveness, support budget planning, and evaluate cost-performance tradeoffs.
• Design fiscally responsible and motivating payout structures, including accelerators, thresholds, and payout curves. 
• Develop and maintain plan templates, testing protocols, audit tools, and documentation for comp plan issuance. 
• Define compensation policies, including big deal/windfall, ramp, proration, and start/stop policies. 
• Build sales comp enablement materials and deliver. enablement through live training, commission estimators, knowledge articles, and sales onboarding content. 
• Benchmark comp practices and performance metrics against industry peers to ensure competitiveness.
• Identify opportunities for process improvement; recommend solutions leveraging best practices. 

Qualifications

What You'll Bring to the Team: 

• Proven ability to develop and manage compensation plans that attract, retain, and motivate top talent while aligning to strategic business goals. 
• 10+ years of experience in global sales compensation operations, ideally in a high-growth or enterprise SaaS environment. 
• Deep expertise in sales comp design and administration across international markets and sales functions. 
• Strong leadership presence and the ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders and executive leadership. 
• Experience with Xactly, Salesforce (SFDC), and financial systems; strong Excel and modeling skills. 
• Working knowledge of GAAP accounting principles related to commissions and revenue recognition. 
• Excellent communication skills - both written and verbal - with the ability to simplify complex topics. 
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Accounting, or a related field

Additional Information

Please note: This is a hybrid role that requires an in-office presence three days per week (Tuesday-Thursday). 

This role is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the expected base salary range for this position is as shown below. The actual base pay is depende