Sales Compensation Lead

About Rippling

Rippling gives businesses one place to run HR, IT, and Finance. It brings together all of the workforce systems that are normally scattered across a company, like payroll, expenses, benefits, and computers. For the first time ever, you can manage and automate every part of the employee lifecycle in a single system.

Take onboarding, for example. With Rippling, you can hire a new employee anywhere in the world and set up their payroll, corporate card, computer, benefits, and even third-party apps like Slack and Microsoft 365all within 90 seconds.

Based in San Francisco, CA, Rippling has raised $1.4B from the worlds top investorsincluding Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Greenoaks, and Bedrockand was named one of America's best startup employers by Forbes.

We prioritize candidate safety. Please be aware that all official communication will only be sent from addresses.

As the Sales Compensation Lead, you'll be instrumental in refining, scaling, and operationalizing the incentive programs that drive our financial success and fuel our growth. This isn't just about managing compensation; it's about optimizing our operations and leveraging technology to make our processes world-class.

Reporting directly to the VP, Controller within the Accounting and Finance organization, you'll dive deep into our current variable compensation landscape. Your immediate focus will be on taking ownership of current variable compensation processes, identifying inefficiencies in existing processes, reduction of payout errors, aligning payout with stated commissions logic, ensuring audit-ability for the finance business partners, and implementing improvements to enhance accuracy and timeliness.

A significant part of your role will involve partnering closely with our Product team to accelerate the transition to our new Variable Compensation product. You'll oversee critical testing and ensure a seamless rollout, maximizing the tool's capabilities to support our evolving compensation strategies. Your expertise will directly contribute to Rippling's continued growth and reputation by ensuring our compensation programs are competitive, efficient, and seamlessly integrated with our financial operations and technological advancements. This is a critical role that will directly shape our operational excellence in variable compensation, ensuring our people are rewarded effectively while building scalable, future-proof processes.

• Develop compensation recommendations and insights for senior-level stakeholders.
• Lead the strategy and operations for variable compensation throughout the sales organization, including calculations, payouts, planning, auditing, and ad-hoc analysis.
• Build strategic analysis, reporting, documentation, and processes in collaboration with Sales, Finance, Accounting, HR, and Legal.
• Monitor sales incentive plans with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure the health of our variable compensation plans.
• Work on strategic and operational initiatives in partnership with Sales and Revenue Operations leadership.
• Take ownership of current variable compensation processes, identifying inefficiencies and pain points, and then design, develop, and implement new processes, policies, and robust frameworks to significantly improve efficiency, reduce manual effort, and ensure scalability across all variable compensation programs.
• Oversee the end-to-end administration of all variable compensation plans, ensuring accurate calculation, timely payouts, and compliance with internal policies and external regulations.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders, including Accounting, Finance, Sales, HR, and Product teams, to ensure seamless integration of variable compensation strategies with broader business objectives and technological advancements.
• Analyze compensation data to identify trends, measure program effectiveness, and provide insights that inform strategic adjustments and continuous improvement of variable compensation programs.
• Partner closely with the Product team to lead and accelerate the transition to our new Variable Compensation tool. This includes overseeing critical testing, managing rollout strategies, and ensuring the tool's capabilities are fully leveraged to support our evolving compensation needs.
• Ensure all variable compensation processes and programs adhere to relevant financial controls, audit requirements, and regulatory standards, mitigating risks related to financial reporting.
• Champion a culture of operational excellence, continuously seeking opportunities to innovate and refine our variable compensation practices and systems.

• 8 years of progressive experience in compensation, with a significant focus on variable compensation design, administration, and operations.
• Strong background in development, process improvement and re-engineering, with a proven ability to identify inefficiencies, implement robust solutions, and drive operational excellence.
• Deep understanding of sales compensation, sales strategy & operations, and incentive planning.
• Proficiency in leveraging technology to automate and streamline compensation processes.
• Solid understanding of accounting principles related to compensation, accruals, and financial reporting.

Accounting at Rippling is responsible for supporting and communicating the financial story of Rippling. We assess, track and record every penny that Rippling transacts. Our diverse team consists of professionals spread across the United States, Europe, and India, with more international locations coming soon. Over the last couple years, our team has grown exponentially to support a complex, multi-product company that operates globally.

Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics. Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

This role will receive a competitive salary benefits equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location; see which tier applies to your location here. A variety of factors are considered when determining someones compensationincluding a candidates professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.

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Locations - San Francisco, CA