Sr Principal, Sales Incentive Strategy & Operations

UKG•,

1d•$145,600 - $200,000

About The Position

As the Sr Principal, Sales Incentive Strategy & Operations, you will lead the strategy, design, governance, and operational execution of UKG’s global sales incentive ecosystem. This role is responsible for ensuring sales compensation programs, quota methodologies, and revenue-driving incentive initiatives are aligned to UKG’s Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy, growth objectives, and evolving business priorities across HCM, payroll, workforce management, and SaaS recurring revenue motions. You will serve as a strategic bridge across Sales, Revenue Operations, Finance, HR, Legal, and Executive Leadership, overseeing the full sales incentive revenue cycle — from annual plan design and quota setting through policy governance, operational execution, payout alignment, analytics, and plan effectiveness reviews. This leader will drive consistency and scalability across multiple workstreams and stakeholder groups while ensuring compensation programs motivate the right sales behaviors and support profitable growth. This role requires deep expertise in enterprise SaaS sales compensation strategy, quota and territory alignment, SPIFF administration, President’s Club governance, policy management, and operational excellence in complex global sales organizations. You will lead a team of sales compensation and revenue operations professionals while acting as a trusted advisor to senior GTM leadership. This is a people manager role reporting to the Sr. Director, Sales Compensation.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive experience in sales compensation, revenue operations, sales strategy, or incentive plan administration within a complex enterprise SaaS or technology environment
Strong expertise designing and operating global sales compensation programs in high-growth, matrixed organizations
Demonstrated experience managing the full sales incentive lifecycle, including quota setting, plan design, implementation, governance, analytics, and operational execution
Deep understanding of SaaS revenue models, recurring revenue metrics, pipeline dynamics, and enterprise sales motions
Proven ability to lead highly cross-functional initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, workstream owners, and executive leaders
Experience with quota and territory planning methodologies, sales performance analytics, and compensation modeling
Strong operational and policy governance mindset with the ability to balance strategic thinking and executional detail
Experience overseeing SPIFF programs, sales contests, recognition programs, and President’s Club administration
Exceptional analytical, financial modeling, and problem-solving skills
Strong executive communication and influencing skills with the ability to present recommendations to senior leadership
Proven people leadership experience with a track record of developing high-performing teams and driving organizational effectiveness

Nice To Haves

Experience working with sales compensation platforms and enterprise systems such as Xactly, Varicent, Salesforce, Workday, or similar technologies preferred

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end strategy, design, modeling, governance, and execution of UKG’s global sales compensation programs, including annual incentive plans, quota frameworks, SPIFFs, accelerators, contests, and President’s Club programs
Own the full sales incentive revenue cycle across multiple workstream owners, ensuring alignment between Compensation, Revenue Operations, Sales Leadership, Finance, HR, Payroll, Legal, and Systems teams
Partner closely with Revenue Operations and GTM leadership on quota setting methodologies, territory alignment, coverage modeling, and capacity planning to ensure incentive plans support UKG’s revenue growth strategy
Develop scalable compensation frameworks that support multiple sales motions, including new logo acquisition, customer expansion, channel/partner sales, overlay organizations, and recurring SaaS revenue models
Serve as a strategic advisor to executive leadership on compensation philosophy, sales performance trends, plan effectiveness, and incentive-driven business outcomes
Lead annual sales compensation planning cycles, including plan design, financial modeling, earnings distribution analysis, communication strategies, implementation readiness, and post-launch governance
Govern Global Sales Operations Policies (GSOPs), compensation plan terms and conditions, exception management processes, and policy interpretation to ensure consistency, compliance, and operational integrity
Partner with systems, analytics, and operations teams to translate business requirements into scalable compensation administration and reporting solutions
Oversee incentive analytics and performance reporting, including attainment trends, quota health, pay-for-performance analysis, and fiscal impact assessments
Drive ongoing evaluation and optimization of incentive programs using market benchmarking, competitive intelligence, internal performance data, and seller feedback
Lead operational governance for President’s Club and other recognition programs, including eligibility criteria, performance validation, executive reporting, and communications
Ensure effective governance and operational rigor for short-term incentive programs and SPIFFs, including approval processes, payout validation, financial controls, and measurement of program effectiveness
Build strong cross-functional relationships across Sales, Customer Success, Revenue Operations, Finance, HR, Payroll, Legal, and Corporate Systems to improve alignment and execution across the revenue organization
Mentor and develop a high-performing team focused on sales compensation strategy, policy operations, analytics, and operational excellence
Support company-wide OKRs and strategic initiatives related to growth, productivity, seller experience, operational scalability, and revenue performance