Sales Compensation Design Manager

LinkedIn•Sunnyvale, CA

3d•$116,000 - $189,000•Hybrid

About The Position

At LinkedIn, our approach to flexible work is centered on trust and optimized for culture, connection, clarity, and the evolving needs of our business. The work location of this role is hybrid, meaning it will be performed both from home and from a LinkedIn office on select days, as determined by the business needs of the team. This role can be based in our Sunnyvale or San Francisco office. As a Sales Compensation Design Lead, you guide compensation strategy for business units, focusing on growth opportunities that support the go-to-market strategy. You coordinate and optimize sales compensation programs, collaborating with leaders in Sales, Sales Ops, HR, and Policy to develop effective, competitive, and compliant structures. The ideal candidate uses data and has deep experience in incentive design and commission modeling, offering strategic guidance, analyzing results, and resolving business challenges.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in Sales Compensation design roles, including incentive compensation plan design for SaaS bussing using consumption-based compensation models within digital advertising or technology sectors.
4+ years of experience in sales compensation strategy and incentive plan modeling, with program management, stakeholder partnership, and data analysis skills—including using SQL to identify trends in large, complex datasets and communicate insights cross‑functionally.

Nice To Haves

6+ years of experience with sales compensation business process management and sales compensation operations.
Ability to strongly collaborate and positively influence cross-functional leaders and stakeholders involved in the incentive compensation management process, including Sales Leadership, Sales Operations, Systems, Engineering, Human Resources, Policy, and GSC Enablement.
Demonstrated experience with change management in a fast-paced, technology-paced, paced, technology-centric organization.
Self-starter with a proactive, “get things done” mentality and the ability to focus on systemwide vs. wide vs. subsystem solutions system system solutions.
Ability to logically and efficiently structure solutions to ambiguous problems, conduct impact analysis, identify key insights, and recommend an action plan.
Ability to lean in and partner with all business levels to make decisions and deliver solutions that meet desired outcomes.
Proficiency in Microsoft 365 tools including Power BI, Excel, PowerPoint.
Robust planning and time management skills with the ability to manage multiple deliverables to tight timelines management skills with the ability to manage multiple deliverables to tight timelines.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

Lead global sales compensation strategy in partnership with business units, delivering a consolidated perspective on plan design, annual and midyear planning, pilots, and SPIFs
Apply strong commercial and financial acumen to evaluate the impact of compensation decisions on performance, cost, and behavior.
Partner with Sales Leadership, Sales Operations, Finance, HR, and GSC Policy teammates to understand business needs, identify challenges, and deliver data driven driven compensation solutions.
Translate complex compensation concepts into clear, compelling insights and recommendations for senior technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Serve as a trusted advisor to business and functional leaders on compensation strategy and best practices.
Collaborate with the Global Sales Design Team on the annual design and planning calendar, ensuring alignment across Systems, Operations, and Reporting teams.
Assess change impacts and partner with Enablement to develop content to ensure stakeholder readiness and adoption.
Ensure incentive compensation programs comply with internal policies, regulatory requirements, labor laws, and financial reporting standards.
Partner with Global Technology Solutions and Global Operations teams to embed efficiency, scalability, and effectiveness into compensation design principles.
Maintain deep working knowledge of GSC systems, tools, and operational processes to support end-to-end toend program execution.
Analyze current state and future statestate and futurestate compensation programs (design, policy, governance, enablement) to drive coordinated improvements, track outcomes, and measure impact.
Drive continuous improvement across compensation analytics, processes, and tools.