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Salary: USD 180,000 - 270,000 / annual
Attentive is an AI marketing platform for 1:1 personalization, combining SMS, RCS, email, and push notifications to deliver personalized customer experiences. The company is recognized as the #1 SMS marketing provider by G2 and partners with 8,000+ customers across 70+ industries, including major brands like Crate and Barrel, Urban Outfitters, and Carter's. Attentive has been included in Deloitte's Fast 500 (four years running), Forbes' Cloud 100 (five years running), LinkedIn's Top Startups, and Inc.'s Best Workplaces.
As Director of Incentive Compensation, you will lead the design and administration of incentive programs across the organization. Your responsibilities include:
• Lead annual incentive planning for Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, and other go-to-market roles, working with leaders to define performance measures, pay mix, payout curves, accelerators, and plan rules.
• Track, report, and coordinate with Accounting on non-GTM bonus plans including executive bonuses.
• Evaluate how pricing, contract terms, customer commitments, usage, and deal margin affect payouts, recommending changes that support growth without encouraging poor deal economics.
• Build and test compensation models to show how different attainment levels and plan structures affect employee earnings and company costs, explaining tradeoffs to support leadership decisions.
• Own commission operations end-to-end: calculation, validation, reconciliation, approvals, and delivery to Payroll. Ensure accuracy, timeliness, clear statements, and prompt issue resolution.
• Maintain plan documentation and consistent policies for crediting, ramp periods, guarantees, role changes, adjustments, and exceptions, working with People, Legal, Accounting, and Payroll on controls.
• Assess plan effectiveness by tracking attainment, payout distribution, commission costs, and behavioral outcomes. Separate actual results from forecast assumptions and develop recommendations.
• Improve compensation systems and data through collaboration with Revenue Operations and business systems partners on requirements, testing, and data quality. Leverage automation and AI to reduce manual work and improve accuracy.
• Lead and develop the compensation team, setting clear responsibilities, reviewing work, and coaching through complex questions. Help managers and employees understand their plans through rollout materials and ongoing communication.
• Partner with FP&A and Accounting on commission forecasts, accruals, reconciliations, and variance explanations. Prepare clear analysis for senior leadership.
REQUIREMENTS:
• 8+ years of relevant experience in incentive compensation, incentive design, or related Finance or Revenue Operations roles, with ownership of both plan design and administration.
• Experience managing and developing a team, ideally including at least two years of people management.
• Experience designing and operating incentive programs in a SaaS, technology, or similarly complex business.
• Strong Excel or Google Sheets skills; ability to build scenario models, trace calculations to source, and identify when assumptions break down.
• Practical experience with incentive compensation platforms and Salesforce data; understanding of how contract terms, bookings, billing, and payouts connect.
• Sound business judgment to challenge proposals constructively and balance employee motivation, financial discipline, and ease of administration.
• Clear communication with executives, managers, and employees; ability to explain complex plans or difficult payout decisions.
• Attention to detail and discipline with sensitive information, especially during busy payout or planning cycles.
• Experience with consumption-based revenue, margin-based incentives, expansion and retention plans.
• Direct experience with commission management platforms (Xactly preferred, or equivalent SPM systems like CaptivateIQ, Spiff).
