Sales Commissions Lead

We're a global team of over 400 people, working together to push the boundaries of open-source technology and multi-cloud solutions. Our vision is to become the trusted Data & AI Platform for everyone, leveraging the most popular open-source technologies like Apache Kafka®, PostgreSQL®, ClickHouse®, and OpenSearch® to help companies accelerate time-to-market, drive efficiency, and build innovative solutions across any cloud.

Your goal will be to own Sales Compensation at Aiven, building and running how we pay and motivate every revenue team across SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise, SE, ISR, and Partnerships, spanning EMEA, AMER & APAC. You'll have the mandate to make comp operations AI-first, building the automation and tooling that runs it at scale yourself.

Responsibilities:

Compensation Plan Design & Governance

• Design, cost, and maintain variable compensation plans for quota-carrying reps and overlay roles (ISR, Partners, SA), aligned with GTM strategy and financial targets.
• Model plan costs and payout scenarios ahead of annual and mid-year changes, partnering with Finance on affordability and ROI, using AI tooling to build and stress-test scenario models faster and across more variables than manual modelling allows.
• Own plan documentation, rep-facing comp letters, and FAQs, using AI to draft, personalise, and keep them consistent with the current plan terms.
• Write and maintain the sales compensation policy, including plan terms and conditions, eligibility, draws/guarantees, windfall and clawback provisions, leaver/joiner and leave-of-absence handling, and dispute escalation procedures.

Quota & Crediting Operations

• Implement quotas, targets, and crediting rules correctly across the commissions platform and Salesforce.
• Own crediting logic for expansions, amendments, multi-year deals, proration, and FX.
• Partner with RevOps and Deal Desk to keep crediting aligned with how deals are structured, including consumption-based revenue recognition.
• Use AI-assisted checks to test crediting rules against deal data before and after each change, catching misconfigurations before they reach a payout.

Commission Calculation & Payments

• Run monthly and quarterly commission calculations, reconciliation, and dispute resolution, with AI-assisted reconciliation and anomaly detection to flag outliers, duplicates, and calculation errors ahead of payout.
• Own the payroll handoff process, ensuring accurate and on-time payouts.
• Maintain audit readiness and strong internal controls across the full compensation cycle, including a clear record of where AI is used in the process and how its output is reviewed.

Reporting & Analytics

• Build and maintain reliable reporting on attainment, payouts, and plan effectiveness for Sales, Finance, and RevOps leadership.
• Surface insights on plan performance and recommend adjustments to keep incentives driving the right behaviors, using AI to analyse attainment and payout patterns and to test proposed plan changes against historical data.
• Provide reps and managers with AI-assisted, self-serve answers to routine comp and attainment questions, so the team's time goes to plan design and exceptions rather than repeat queries.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Sales leadership, RevOps, Finance/FP&A, Payroll, People, and Legal on compensation governance.
• Serve as the go-to expert on comp mechanics, explaining plan design and payouts to reps and executives alike.
• Support internal-controls work, responding to audit requests related to compensation, using AI to assemble evidence packs and trace calculations quickly.

AI-Native Ways of Working

• Build and maintain AI-assisted workflows, templates, and prompts for the recurring work of the role: scenario modelling, comp letters and FAQs, reconciliation checks, dispute triage, and reporting.
• Apply sound judgment on where AI is and is not appropriate in a controlled financial process: verify all AI-assisted output before it affects a payout, policy, or audit response, and keep human sign-off on every payment decision.
• Document these workflows so they are transferable across the Sales Comp and RevOps teams, and coach colleagues on adopting them.

REQUIREMENTS

Must-haves

• Comp/RevOps experience: You bring 4-8+ years in Sales Compensation, Incentive Compensation, RevOps, Sales Ops, or Finance within a high-growth B2B SaaS environment.
• Plan design expertise: You've designed and operated variable compensation plans, including quota-carrying and overlay roles, accelerators, and SPIFFs.
• Consumption-based comp experience: You've built and run compensation plans for a consumption-based business model, and understand how to structure incentives around usage-based revenue rather than pure subscription bookings.
• Policy writing: You've authored clear, legally sound sales compensation policy documents (plan terms and conditions, eligibility rules, and dispute procedures) that hold up under scrutiny from Legal, Finance, and reps alike.
• SaaS commercial fluency: You're fluent in SaaS commercial concepts like bookings/ARR, consumption/usage revenue, expansions and amendments, multi-year deals, proration, and FX.
• Commissions operations: You have hands-on experience with reconciliation, dispute handling, approvals, payroll handoff, and audit readiness under tight monthly close timelines.
• Advanced spreadsheet skills: You're advanced in Excel or Google Sheets (pivot tables, complex formulas, data cleaning, and modeling)
• Systems fluency: You're comfortable in Salesforce (or a similar CRM) and a commissions platform such as Xactly, Qobra, CaptivateIQ, Varicent, or Everstage.
• Stakeholder communication: You explain comp mechanics clearly to reps and executives alike, building trust through every conversation.
• Integrity & discretion: You handle sensitive compensation data with high integrity and discretion.

Nice-to-haves

• SOX & controls experience: You've worked with SOX/internal controls and commissions accounting or accruals.
• BI/reporting tools: You have experience with BI or reporting tooling.
• Automation skills: You're comfortable with SQL, dbt, or scripting to automate parts of the comp workflow.

Our Offer

If you ask us what's the best thing about working for Aiven, many will probably say it's the high concentration of talent from around the world that we have here. Enjoy the agile environment of a hyperscale scale-up where you can truly make an impact and have fun while at it.

We invest in you:

• Competitive base salary + commission structure with accelerators for overachievement
• Participate in Aiven's equity plan
• With Aiven locations spanning the globe, we want all of our crabs to find the right balance with our hybrid work policy
• Get the needed equipment to set yourself up for success
• Step up your career game with real employer support (use one of our learning platforms, annual learning budget, and more)
• Get holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program

Make a difference at Aiven:

• Contribute to open-source projects that you find meaningful outside of work-and get paid for it! Our Plankton program recognizes extra work to the open-source ecosystem for developers and non-developers alike
• Use up to 5 days per year to volunteer for a good cause of your choice
• Join one of our team member resource groups-empower yourself and others in missions that resonate with you

What else:

• Need insurance: We've got you covered-benefit from comprehensive health insurance options including dental and vision benefits and Life and AD&D insurance
• Your wellbeing matters: we provide you with a health savings account with Aiven contributions, as well as short and long term disability plans
• Looking after your future: you're covered by 401(k) and Roth 401(k) retirement plans

Amazing! What's next:

Once applying you should hear from our Talent Experience team within five days regarding the status of your application.

E-verify:

Aiven participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. More information about our participation in e-verify can be found here.

How to Recognize and Avoid Employment Scams:

There has been a rise in fake job postings used by scammers to get personal information. Please familiarize yourself with the red flags of a potential scam.

Here at Aiven, all of our emails relating to recruitment come from an @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io or @eu.greenhouse.io domain and all of our interviews are conducted over video call or in person, our interviews will never occur over text or chat. If you're unsure of the legitimacy of a job opportunity/offer pertaining to Aiven, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected].

Equal Opportunities:

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven, we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at [email protected].