Sr Principal, Sales Incentive Strategy & Operations

Why UKG:  

At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform. Helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries. That’s what we do.

We never stop learning. We never stop challenging the norm. We push for better, and we celebrate the wins along the way. Here, you’ll get flexibility that’s real, benefits you can count on, and a team that succeeds together. Because at UKG, your work matters—and so do you.

What you'll do
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.
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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
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What you bring
• 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
• Experience working with sales compensation platforms and enterprise systems such as Xactly, Varicent, Salesforce, Workday, or similar technologies preferred
• Proven people leadership experience with a track record of developing high-performing teams and driving organizational effectiveness

Company Overview:

UKG is the Workforce Operating Platform that puts workforce understanding to work. With the world's largest collection of workforce insights, and people-first AI, our ability to reveal unseen ways to build trust, amplify productivity, and empower talent, is unmatched. It's this expertise that equips our customers with the intelligence to solve any challenge in any industry — because great organizations know their workforce is their competitive edge. Learn more at ukg.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer   

UKG is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, disability, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.

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UKG participates in E-Verify. View the E-Verify posters here.  

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. 

Disability Accommodation in the Application and Interview Process

For individuals with disabilities that need additional assistance at any point in the application and interview process, please email [email protected]. 

The pay range for this position is $145,600 to $200,000. The actual base pay offered may vary depending on skills, experience, job-related knowledge and work location. In addition to base pay, employees may be eligible to participate in a performance-based bonus plan and to receive restricted stock unit awards as part of total compensation. Learn more about UKG’s benefits and rewards at https://www.ukg.com/about-us/careers/benefits