Senior Principal, Sales Compensation Design & Strategy

As the Senior Principal, Sales Compensation Design & Strategy, you will design and manage Cloudflare's Sales Compensation Plans across all customer facing teams including Sales, Technical Sales, Partner Sales, and Customer Success & Experience, to ensure they are motivating, aligned with Cloudflare's strategy, and industry leading. This is a high visibility role with significant executive engagement, including leading C-level discussions with our CRO, CFO, CPO, and COO, and serving as the design authority on the Executive Compensation Steering Committee. You will architect new compensation metrics that reflect how Cloudflare monetizes a developer first, AI supportive business - including consumption, adoption, and platform attach - and ensure roles, territories, and quotas align with compensation plans to achieve our GTM objectives. You will establish a governance framework for efficient compensation planning and partner closely with the Compensation Administration and Operations Teams to ensure effective implementation and accurate payouts. A strong understanding of SaaS bookings, monetization approaches, and consumption and adoption models is essential.

• Lead the Sales Compensation Design Process with the Executive Steering Committee, including CRO, CFO, and CPO level stakeholders.
• Drive C-level discussions on compensation philosophy, pay-for-performance outcomes, and strategic trade-offs; develop recommendation decks and own the narrative through approval.
• Architect new metrics that align seller incentives with Cloudflare's developer platform and AI product strategy (e.g., Workers consumption, AI Gateway adoption, platform attach, multi-product penetration).
• Create a 3-year roadmap for the Sales Compensation Design function.
• Build the AI Compensation Design Framework and Application - an internal capability that uses AI to accelerate plan modeling, scenario simulation, payout forecasting, and what-if analysis across thousands of sellers and territories.
• Leverage AI to design high-quality SPIFFs and incentive structures, including generating candidate designs, simulating seller behavior, and stress-testing against historical data before launch.
• Track ROI of comp plans, SPIFFs, and incentive programs using AI-driven analytics - moving from lagging reporting to predictive measurement of plan effectiveness, seller behavior change, and revenue lift.
• Develop AI-powered pay-for-performance reporting that surfaces insights for executives, managers, and sellers in real time, replacing static quarterly reviews with continuous intelligence.
• Collaborate with GTM Strategy, Operations, Finance, HR, IT, and Product to ensure effective deployment of compensation plans and GTM strategy.
• Lead compensation enablement and change management for the global Sales team, including AI-assisted communications, FAQ generation, and plan-acceptance workflows.
• Design SPIFFs and incentive strategies that balance long-term strategic bets with short-term revenue goals.
• Partner with the Compensation Administration and Operations Teams to ensure design intent translates into accurate, auditable payouts.

• 15+ years of experience in Sales Compensation Design in a fast-paced tech company or as a management consultant.
• Demonstrated fluency with AI tools and AI-augmented workflows - whether through prior comp design work, analytics, or strategic projects.
• Comfort building or directing the build of AI-powered internal applications is strongly preferred.
• Strong analytical skills, including the ability to architect new metrics for emerging business models (consumption, AI monetization).
• Exceptional presentation and communication skills, with proven experience presenting to and influencing C-level executives.
• Proven experience driving Executive Steering Committee meetings and owning the decision narrative end-to-end.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives to completion across Finance, HR, IT, Product, and GTM.
• Detail-oriented with a strategic mindset.
• Bachelor's degree required.

Compensation may be adjusted depending on work location. For San Francisco based hires: Estimated annual salary of $230,000 - $317,000. For California (excluding Bay Area), Washington, Washington DC, NY and NJ based hires: $220,000 - $303,000. For Colorado based hires: Estimated annual salary of $200,000 - $275,000. Equity: This role is eligible to participate in Cloudflare's equity plan.

Cloudflare offers a complete package of benefits and programs to support you and your family. Benefits include Medical/Rx Insurance, Dental Insurance, Vision Insurance, Flexible Spending Accounts, Commuter Spending Accounts, Fertility & Family Forming Benefits, On-demand mental health support and Employee Assistance Program, Global Travel Medical Insurance, Short and Long Term Disability Insurance, Life & Accident Insurance, 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan, Employee Stock Participation Plan, Flexible paid time off covering vacation and sick leave, and Leave programs including parental, pregnancy health, medical, and bereavement leave.

Apply via the provided Greenhouse link.