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Job Details
Posted date: Dec 08, 2025
Category: Sales Compensation
Location: Multiple Locations, Multiple Locations
Estimated salary: $169,750
Range: $116,900 - $222,600
Employment type: Full-Time
Work location type: 0 days / week in-office – remote
Role: Individual Contributor
Description
OverviewLeverages a deep understanding of compensation to design and/or apply incentive compensation plans. Acts as a the subject matter expert in quota management for their stakeholder groups. Drives the implementation of incentive compensation plans. Builds trusted advisor partnerships with cross-functional leaders and managers. Leverages a deep understanding of sales strategies across stakeholder group(s). Leverages a deep understanding of area/territory to forecast how compensation plans and quotas may change. Partners with communications and training teams to build sales manager and seller plan design training and readiness content. Runs communication plans across the organization. Caters content to specific leader needs. Leverages analysis of performance to identify and recommend appropriate actions based on trends and insights. Builds cohesive, data-driven stories to solve compensation related problems. Establishes product features and usage to be prioritized by cross-organizational groups. Leverages industry-wide perspective and competitor trends to influence future compensation processes. Determines root cause of issues and engages with relevant stakeholders to address. Completes end-to-end payroll administration processing globally with higher complexity. Applies deep organizational domain expertise and leverages previous experiences to solve complex or priority field inquiries. Assesses complex programs for potential risk. Holds accountability for running and managing ongoing programs across stakeholder group(s).
Responsibilities
Business AnalyticsWorks closely with stakeholders and Sales leadership to provide rigorous quantitative analysis and modeling related to compensation programs and plan performance. Leverages analysis of performance to identify and recommend appropriate actions (e.g., correction of errors, acceleration where seeing success) based on trends and insights. Leads scenario modeling and analyses of incentive compensation plan designs to assess legal and financial risks. Uses mathematical and statistical modeling to provide recommendations that are in line with specific leader business challenges and inform data-driven outcomes, including operational and financial cost implications.Builds cohesive, data-driven stories to solve compensation related problems, simplifying the complex and connecting dots across available data. Frames insights and caters analytical storytelling to the audience. Develops sales performance reports and/or data visualizations to communicate sales compensation results and quantify business impact across the organization.Manages and drives understanding of pay for performance philosophy, and owns cost portfolio management insights (e.g., total sales compensation costs and associated expenses), leading and reporting out initiatives across groups. Considers overall cost impact and risks (e.g., legal, financial).Compensation ConsultingDrives the implementation of incentive compensation plans, focusing on first mile excellence and verifying that sellers have plans and quotas assigned correctly. Holds accountability for ensuring plans can be implemented properly, including any incremental asks for resources. Ensures plans promote "the seller experience" given systems and processes in place. Assesses plans according to compensation design principles and governing compliance. Engages with the business to review and challenge the fairness and equality of compensation designs and implementations. Works with business leaders to develop an approach for implementing localized plans within their specific teams or for specific customer models. Aligns plans broadly across territories and taxonomies. Creates validation checklists, path options, and workback plans to drive implementation.Uses statistical models and machine learning algorithms to develop and deliver quotas. Completes data mining and analysis, forecasting, and modeling to support the development of complex segment or area quotas. Engages with stakeholders to evaluate risk and feasibilities of quota setting. Communicates findings with stakeholders to drive broader quota setting processes. Acts as a point of contact to explain quota methodology, data sources, and coverage models across teams.Acts as a the subject matter expert in quota management for their stakeholder groups. Leads and owns the requirements for tools enabling quota management processes. Participates in dialogue with senior leadership and executives to understand sales strategies and ensure sellers' quota setting methodologies, models, and motivational levers are aligned with plans. Recommends options for quota setting to drive better alignment with strategy and existing infrastructure. Improves field and user experience by working with cross-disciplinary partners (e.g., Business and Sales Operations, Digital Sales, Quota champions in Consumer Segments). Drives quality and scale across all quota management processes and tools. Analyzes the influencers for effective quota setting, and leads initiatives to improve quota management automation, governance, and reporting.Leverages a deep understanding of compensation design principles, levers, and mechanics to design and/or apply incentive compensation plans. Aligns plans with strategic business objectives across disciplines to promote high ROI (e.g., smart risks, deliver within cost parameters, inspire participant action). Engages with executive-level Sales leaders and sponsors to review plans and obtain feedback. Presents plan designs, including supporting analyses, rationale, and costs. Customizes plans for specific industries and geoareas to drive the right outcomes. Drives calibration between plans and software, services, and sales Go-to-Market strategies (e.g., quota mechanics, segmentation, territories, role orchestration, and sales modern design). Integrates milestones and expected deliverables into plans, and proactively considers dependencies (e.g., securing funding, including operational funds), issues, and risks.Compensation StrategyLeverages a deep understanding of sales strategies across stakeholder group(s). Partners with business leaders to develop marketing and content strategies for compensation landing plans and quotas across areas/teams. Advocates for sellers and customers when developing incentive compensation strategies. Acts as a thought leader to creatively reinforce strategy through compensation plans, quotas, and sales models that motivate seller behavior. Stays up-to-date on the overarching Microsoft strategy. Informs alignment between sales compensation plans and the organization’s compensation and business strategies. Broadens awareness of products, sales plays, and compete scenarios from across the market.Acts as a trusted advisor for their field representatives. Leverages a deep understanding of area/territory to forecast how compensation plans and quotas may change at a local level. Proactively drives conversations with leaders to ensure plans can be impactful (e.g., soliciting feedback before going live, reviewing pros/cons, developing guidelines for deviations). Synthesizes insights and outcomes to share broadly across the leadership team as the voice of the field. Drives leader engagement in determining plan effectiveness and owning participant experiences. Manages area/territory rhythm of business (ROB) to note any changes (e.g., what accounts are covered). Drives local sales contests to ensure alignment with global strategy.Governance and ComplianceLeads efforts to interpret new and emerging business needs, compliance requirements, governance policies, and legislation, and applies findings across sales compensation programs. Assesses complex programs for potential risk, making recommendations to align programs with guidelines and compliance strategies. Identifies control measures and governance needs, and helps to design governance and compliance processes.Innovation and Continuous ImprovementEstablishes product features and usage to be prioritized by cross-organizational groups (e.g., Engineering) to enable the execution of incentive compensation product marketing strategies. Gathers feedback on customer and seller requirements to drive tools and processes development. Creates and/or owns global tools and processes as well as the technical infrastructure for incentive compensation plan enactment. Participates in user acceptance testing (UAT) on new platform features.Drives innovative processes and tools, including quota forecasting, standardizing work flows, tool mechanics, and functionality. Acts as a functional subject matter expert, leveraging industry-wide perspective and competitor trends to influence future compensation processes. Synthesizes feedback from team members and sellers regarding experiences and potential improvements. Drives continuous process improvements and in-flight changes through the review and analysis of incentive compensation performance.MarketingPartners with communications teams, business stakeholders, and senior executives to develop both proactive and reactive communication plans. Runs communication plans across the organization. Adjusts communication plans and realigns delivery at scale.Creates externally facing (e.g., across the organization and outside of Microsoft) presentations and other digital-based content for sellers, business partners, Sales leaders, and executives which tell compelling stories regarding incentive compensation plans. Caters content to specific leader needs, soliciting feedback and editing accordingly to create personalized content for a leader to share outwardly.Partners with communications and training teams to build sales manager and seller plan design training and readiness content. Develops training programs to ensure sales teams understand their incentive compensation plans and remain up-to-date on changes. Proactively aligns programs with incentive compensation plans to launch Go-to-Market strategies. Delivers training content and Q&A sessions for incentive compensation plans to sellers and internal stakeholders.Plan and Sales AdministrationActs as a liaison and uses independent judgement to address issues and ad hoc scenarios concerning incentive plans, policies, and guidelines. Holds responsibility for programmatic issues across stakeholder group(s). Manages specific business and territory rules. Determines root cause of issues, engages with relevant stakeholders to address, and documents actions for the help desk (e.g., how to address top issues or concerns). Shares causes and results across the organization and with stakeholders. Leverages documentation to plan for future issues.Reinforces complex global controls when managing vendors who facilitate the payroll process. Monitors the payroll process, reporting data, and vendor performance to design controls and set future plans with vendors. Ensures vendor processes are current with payroll processes. Tracks vendor performance through service level agreements. Incorporates vendor reports and analysis into end-to-end metrics to improve operations. Manages more complex issues channeled up from vendors and removes roadblocks. Supports ad hoc project work. May develop and/or review vendor contracts.Completes end-to-end payroll administration processing globally with higher complexity. Resolves more complex administration issues. Defines definition of delivery model. Provides thought leadership to set direction and approach for delivery across stakeholder group(s). Provides influence to organizations outside of incentive compensation.Applies deep organizational domain expertise and leverages previous experiences to solve complex or priority field inquiries or highly sensitive escalations unsuitable or not resolvable by Managed Service vendors around data mapping, revenue reconciliation, quota tools or principles, plan design, and implementation issues. Proactively engages on new or changing support needs, and provides technical review and readiness support for deeper topics and programmatic changes. Leverages data and insights to improve organizational systems and processes.Program ManagementHolds accountability for running and managing ongoing programs across stakeholder group(s), and owns outcomes related to landing quotas, distributing plans, moving to steady state, and completing case management reviews (e.g., edge cases). Brings work together and keeps others on track to ensure tasks are audited and completed for timely submission. Manages rhythm of the business (ROB) for landed features. Leverages existing materials and works with others to orchestrate program requirements.Stakeholder ManagementBuilds trusted advisor partnerships with cross-functional leaders and managers, representing the organization to area leadership. Begins to accomplish initiatives and serve sales leaders through influencing cross-functional (e.g., finance, business/engineering groups, HR, sales segments) and multi-country team members. Acts as the voice of their stakeholders across multiple organizations. Advocates for their stakeholders and provides value through creative problem-solving. Partners with other sales compensation teams to design, implement, and oversee plans/programs that are customer centric. Proactively identifies and addresses broader business needs from a compensation perspective.
Qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Business, Finance, Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Economics, or related field AND 7+ years experience in compensation, business management and operations, finance and analytics, human resources and people analytics, marketing, or sales strategy OR equivalent experience. Additional or preferred qualificationsMaster of Business Administration Degree or Master's Degree in Finance, Computer Science, Data Science Engineering, or related field.5+ years experience working in a large or highly matrixed organization, preferably in the technology industry.3+ years of project or program leadership/management experience.APPLIES TO QUOTA ANALYSTS AND MANAGERS SPECIALIZATION - 5+ years experience modeling data or statistical forecasting using software packages (e.g., ADX/Azure Stack, SQL, R, Python, Excel).
Required Upon Hire and Critical/ImportantAdaptabilityAdapting to your audience and how you engage with various audiences.Business AcumenThe ability to understand the parts of the business and their interrelationships. This includes skill in understanding the industry, competition, and expected future developments and challenges, the business's competitive strengths and weaknesses, opportunities to grow the business and reduce operating costs; and awareness of the environment for opportunities.Business PlanningThe ability to create business goals, the methods on how these goals can be attained, and the time frame within which these goals need to be achieved.Business Relationship ManagementThe ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships with supervisors, staff, managers, customers, and vendors. This includes expressing empathy and compassion when dealing with the needs and problems of others, being approachable, taking time to address the concerns of coworkers, and treating others with respect and dignity.Change ManagementThe ability to define and implement procedures and/or technologies to deal with changes in the environment. This may include adapting to change, controlling change, and/or affecting change.Conflict ResolutionThe ability to manage conflict, disharmony, and strife among people and situations, while recognizing and addressing sensitivities.
Sales Compensation IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $116,900 - $203,600 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $148,400 - $222,600 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
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