Advanced Specialist, Sales Incentives

Pearson•United States,

3d•$90,000 - $100,000•Remote

About The Position

This role aligns to industry-level titles such as Senior Incentive Compensation Analyst, Senior Sales Compensation Specialist, Sales Incentives Analyst, Sales Incentives Specialist, Sales Compensation Analyst, or Sales Compensation Partner. Join Pearson and help connect sales strategy, seller performance, and business growth. We are looking for a strategic, detail-oriented Advanced Specialist, Sales Incentives to support the design, delivery, governance, and administration of sales incentive programs across Pearson’s sales organization. As Advanced Specialist, Sales Incentives, you will play a key role in translating commercial priorities into incentive plans that are clear, scalable, and operationally sound. You will partner closely with Sales Leadership, Revenue Operations, Finance, HR, and Commercial teams to help ensure incentive programs support business goals, reinforce the right sales behaviors, and are delivered accurately and on time. This is a highly visible, business-facing role. You will support one or more business units as a dedicated incentive partner, helping leaders understand plan design, payout logic, governance requirements, and operational considerations. You will also work directly with sellers and sales managers on incentive-related questions, including attainment, opportunity crediting, and payout accuracy. The right person will bring strong sales compensation experience, sound business judgment, excellent stakeholder management skills, and the ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution.

Requirements

Sales compensation expertise: Strong understanding of sales incentives, commission operations, payout calculations, plan design, and compensation governance.
Business partnership: Ability to work directly with sales leaders and cross-functional stakeholders, build trust, and connect incentive strategy to business outcomes.
Analytical judgment: Comfort working with sales performance data, quotas, attainment, payout logic, and compensation trends.
Operational discipline: High attention to detail, strong documentation habits, and the ability to manage time-sensitive, high-stakes payment processes.
Communication and influence: Ability to explain compensation concepts clearly to leaders, sales managers, and sellers.
Problem solving: Ability to investigate discrepancies, resolve questions proactively, and identify root causes behind operational issues.
Stakeholder management: Experience partnering across Sales, Finance, HR, Revenue Operations, Sales Operations, Marketing, or Commercial teams.
Adaptability: Comfort working in a matrixed, fast-moving environment with multiple business units, priorities, and stakeholders.
Continuous improvement mindset: Ability to identify opportunities to improve scalability, transparency, efficiency, and governance.
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Operations, Human Resources, or a related field.
5+ years of experience in sales compensation, incentive compensation, commission operations, revenue operations, sales operations, commercial operations, or a related business function.
Hands-on experience calculating, validating, and administering sales incentive or commission payments.
Experience supporting or contributing to sales compensation plan design, payout rules, metrics, or governance processes.
Experience partnering directly with sales leaders and cross-functional stakeholders in a business-facing role.
Strong analytical, organizational, communication, and problem-solving skills.
Experience working with CRM systems such as Salesforce or similar platforms.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with Sales Performance Management platforms such as SPIFF, Xactly, CaptivateIQ, Varicent, or similar tools is preferred, but not required.
Experience working in a global, matrixed, or complex organization is preferred.
Industry background is flexible; strong sales compensation experience and stakeholder partnership are more important than prior education industry experience.

Responsibilities

Partner with Sales Leadership, Revenue Operations, Finance, HR, and Commercial teams to align sales incentive programs with business priorities and commercial goals.
Support the design, evolution, and operational delivery of sales incentive plans, including annual and mid-year plan rollouts.
Translate business strategy, sales priorities, metrics, targets, gates, payout rules, and payment timing into clear and executable compensation frameworks.
Calculate, validate, and process monthly, quarterly, and annual sales incentive and commission payments accurately and on time.
Validate attainment calculations, quotas, accelerators, modifiers, kickers, special incentive programs, and payout eligibility.
Coordinate cross-functional readiness activities, including plan documentation, communications, FAQs, leader enablement, testing, and governance validation.
Serve as a trusted point of contact for sales leaders, sellers, and sales managers on incentive plan questions, payout discrepancies, and operational issues.
Support governance, approval workflows, audit-ready documentation, and operational controls related to incentive compensation.
Monitor compensation outcomes, operational trends, and payout activity to identify opportunities for improvement.
Help simplify, standardize, and improve incentive compensation processes, tools, documentation, and ways of working.
Support future readiness for incentive compensation tools and Sales Performance Management platforms as the team continues to evolve.