Senior Manager, Sales Compensation & Incentive Strategy

Horizon3

1d•$170,000 - $200,000•Remote

About The Position

Horizon3 is seeking a Senior Manager, Sales Compensation & Incentive Strategy to own the design and implementation of incentive architectures for its global go-to-market organization. This role is crucial in translating the revenue plan into motivating quota structures, plans, and payouts for sellers. The position involves setting compensation philosophy, building plans, and establishing modeling and governance for scalability. The go-to-market organization is expected to double, making this a key role in building a durable compensation capability. The work will be visible to Sales, Finance, and executive leadership.

Requirements

10 or more years in sales compensation, incentive design, revenue operations, or sales finance, with significant depth in incentive plan design.
Experience authoring plan structures, accelerator design, and crediting rules, and defending them to executives.
Deep experience with quota methodology at scale, including proration, ramp design, attainability analysis, and overlay and management quota construction.
Advanced financial modeling skills for stress-testing designs and diagnosing existing plans.
Strong command of incentive compensation platforms and their configuration logic.
Fluency in Salesforce as the source of truth for crediting and attainment.
A builder mindset, energized by ambiguity and comfortable creating structure.
High EQ and resilience, able to manage tension between Sales and Finance.
Player-coach disposition: able to present compensation philosophy to executives and handle individual commission disputes.
Willingness to say no with a clear reason and comfort being a decision-maker on routine exceptions.
Experience in high-growth environments where the organization doubled.

Responsibilities

Own the incentive architecture, including plan design across various roles (quota-carrying, overlay, management, channel, partner-facing), pay mix, rate structures, accelerators, caps, draws, and multi-period attainment mechanics.
Set the sales compensation philosophy and manage the executive narrative on plan performance, cost, and risk.
Design crediting rules for complex deal structures, including seller splits, partner co-sell dual credit, marketplace and distributor fulfillment, and negative booking treatment.
Translate strategy changes (new segments, pricing launches, coverage model shifts) into timely and accurate plan updates.
Own quota methodology and analysis, partnering with Finance and Sales Operations to translate goals into defensible quota structures.
Define and maintain the quota construction methodology, including proration, ramp phasing, commission rate integrity, and accelerator behavior.
Analyze proposed quotas for attainability and internal equity using attainment history, capacity, and coverage data.
Contribute to moving quota construction from a manual process to a rules-driven system.
Own short-term incentive programs (SPIFFs) end-to-end, from design and approval to communication and payout validation.
Manage SPIFFs as a portfolio within budget, making explicit tradeoffs when necessary.
Pressure-test proposed SPIFFs for potential failure modes and assess their impact on behavior.
Own and publish the compensation decision rights framework, including exception thresholds.
Approve routine compensation exceptions and manage dispute resolution with defined service levels.
Codify compensation decisions into policy for consistent resolution.
Maintain governance documentation, including plan documentation, program terms, approval workflows, version control, and audit-ready records.
Partner with the commissions function to deliver quotas and signed plans to new hires promptly.
Collaborate with Finance on plan assignment and proration execution.
Drive automation across the onboarding to payment chain.
Partner with Revenue Operations Systems to ensure CRM structure supports crediting, attainment, and territory hierarchy.