Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Intercom’s move into AI-powered, outcome-oriented pricing makes sales planning and incentives a particularly consequential lever, and this role sits at that intersection. A Director focused on sales strategy, quota methodology, and compensation operations is positioned where SaaS monetisation choices translate into frontline behaviour. The remit spans subscription and consumption targets, reflecting a segment of the SaaS market where measurement, attribution, and forecasting discipline increasingly determine go-to-market efficiency.
For a SaaS career, the long-term value here is depth in the operating system of revenue. Leading annual and semi-annual planning cycles, capacity modelling, and productivity analytics builds a toolkit that transfers across B2B SaaS, especially companies balancing growth with profitability and shifting pricing models. The cross-functional surface area with Finance, RevOps, Sales, Solutions, Customer Success, and Pricing also develops the stakeholder management and narrative-building skills needed to steer complex GTM trade-offs.
This role tends to suit operators who prefer structured problem-solving, clear governance, and data-backed decisioning over ad hoc firefighting. It also fits leaders who enjoy building teams and raising analytical standards, and who are motivated by turning ambiguous strategy into repeatable processes that scale across global quota-carrying organisations.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
What's the opportunity?
Intercom is seeking a Director, Sales Strategy & Planning to lead our global planning, incentive design, and compensation operations across all quota-carrying GTM roles. In this role, you will help us set the standard for what a great AI compensation strategy looks like because we pioneered outcome-based pricing and are consistently innovating to move the industry forward. You will own the end-to-end strategy and execution of how we set targets, design incentives, and run compensation processes so that they drive the right behaviors, reinforce our Fin-first strategy, and support sustainable, high-quality growth.
You will take the current foundations across multiple areas – annual planning, quota setting methodology and modeling, incentive design, compensation policy, and productivity/capacity analytics – and evolve it for the next stage of Intercom’s AI-powered growth. This is a highly visible leadership position that partners closely with Sales, Solutions, Customer Success, Pricing, Finance, and the wider RevOps team to ensure our compensation strategy reinforces our company objectives and drives excellent outcomes for our customers, customer facing teams, and the company as a whole.
What will I be doing?
- Design and implement innovative incentive strategy across GTM: Lead end-to-end incentive design for all quota-carrying roles and relevant GTM teams, ensuring plans and spiffs are aligned to Intercom’s strategy and are understandable, fair, and motivating. Create and evaluate innovative subscription and consumption targets for our teams.
- Act as the trusted advisor on planning to GTM and executive leadership: Serve as the primary partner to GTM and Finance leaders on questions related to quotas, incentives, spiffs, and compensation trade-offs, including scenario design, financial impact, and change management implications.
- Drive GTM planning and quota strategy: Partner with Finance for annual and semi-annual planning for Sales, Success, and Solutions teams, including capacity/headcount planning and modeling, target setting, and quota assignment across segments and roles.
- Build and lead a high-performing Sales Strategy & Compensation team: Lead, mentor, and develop a team spanning planning, incentive design, and compensation operations, setting incredibly high standards for analytical rigor, ownership, communication, and partnership. Role-model an AI-first, automation-minded approach to how the team works.
- Own compensation operations, policy, and governance: Own and continuously improve the Compensation Operations Policy and related documentation for questions, statements, rules of engagement, and exception handling, in close partnership with Finance and Sales Compensation. Drive improvements with RevOps, Finance, Data Eng, and GTM leadership.
- Lead productivity, capacity, and performance analytics for Sales: Create a portfolio of productivity and capacity reporting, surfacing insights that drive resourcing decisions, territory design, pipeline expectations, and performance management for GTM teams.
What skills do I need?
- 10+ years in sales strategy, sales planning, sales compensation, revenue operations, or GTM finance, with substantial experience owning global quota and incentive design for complex B2B SaaS or usage-based businesses.
- 5+ years of people leadership experience leading high-performing, analytical teams across planning, compensation, or RevOps functions.
- Deep understanding of sales compensation and incentive design in B2B technology contexts, ideally in subscription and consumption business models; experience navigating trade-offs between growth, profitability, and behavior change.
- Experience building AI tools and processes that simplify planning, compensation, and RevOps workflows at scale.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to distill complex topics into clear narratives for executives, managers, and field teams and influence and build trust with senior stakeholders (VP/C-level.
- Experience planning and delivering enablement for major plan or policy change including a mix of large-scale training, small targeted sessions, and ongoing office hours.
- Thrive in fast-paced, evolving environments, bringing structure to ambiguity and leading complex, cross-functional planning and compensation initiatives from design through execution while maintaining trust in core processes and alignment to company strategy.
- Track record of leading large, cross-functional initiatives from design through implementation and iteration, especially in planning, quota, or comp redesign cycles.
- Strong quantitative skills with a data-driven approach to problem solving; comfortable working with complex datasets, financial models, and scenario analyses.
- Experience working with Salesforce and compensation/planning tools (e.g., CaptivateIQ, Lative, or similar), and partnering with Data Engineering / Analytics to improve data quality and reporting foundations.
- Deep alignment with Intercom’s values, especially Success First, Incredibly High Standards, and Impatience to Ship, and a genuine desire to be a force multiplier for GTM execution.
Benefits
We are a well-treated bunch, with awesome benefits! If there’s something important to you that’s not on this list, talk to us!
- Competitive salary and meaningful equity
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Regular compensation reviews—great work is rewarded!
- Flexible paid time off policy
- Paid Parental Leave Program
- 401k plan & match
- In-office bicycle storage
- Fun events for Intercomrades, friends, and family!
The base salary range for candidates within the San Francisco Bay Area is $239,000 - $295,625. Actual base pay will depend on a variety of factors such as education, skills, experience, location, etc. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. All regular employees may also be eligible for the corporate bonus program or a sales incentive (target included in OTE) as well as stock in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).
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