Sales Design and Incentives (SDI) is the team at Microsoft that is responsible for the design, implementation and operations related to the sales and incentive plans across all of Microsoft, impacting 40K+ employees. Our vision is to embody best-in-class, design-to-deployment incentive compensation that inspires sellers to maximize their success and rewards and enables sustainable growth, share, and customer success.
We are passionate about this mission, and we are looking for a Sales Plan Design & Implementation Strategy Director to be part of our Plan Design, Implementation and Planning Team. This team is responsible for the end to end lifecycle of Sales Incentive Compensation, from strategy and plan design through implementation and successful fiscal year rollout.
The Strategy Director will have business acumen, analytical skills, be entrepreneurial, curious, possess communications skills & are excited to apply their passion in designing, managing and landing strategic projects and programs to accelerate our ability to drive the right behavior with the sales to deliver Microsoft commercial goals and objectives. Join us in being part of a team who will innovate, will be a visible advocate for the field, and will be counted on to represent its voice and customers across our functions.
Sales Design and Incentives (SDI) is responsible for helping Microsoft translate company strategy into seller behavior through compensation plans, quotas, earnings, incentives, and seller experiences. As Microsoft evolves its go-to-market motions, business models, and AI-first strategy, SDI continuously adapts how it designs, governs, and operates incentive compensation at global scale.
The Strategy Director serves as the strategic connective tissue between business strategy, operating model design, business processes, governance, and organizational execution.
Responsibilities
Shape Future Business Strategy
Translate Microsoft and SDI priorities into future-state business capabilities and operating models.
Help leadership define how incentive compensation should evolve to support changing seller motions, business models, and growth objectives.
Develop strategic recommendations and business frameworks that guide investment and prioritization decisions.
Identify opportunities to simplify processes, reduce complexity, and improve business outcomes.
Project Leadership and Cross-Functional Alignment
Bring together stakeholders across SDI, Finance, HR, Sales, GTM and Operations to align drive strategic projects and align on priorities and outcomes.
Facilitate business decisions involving competing priorities, tradeoffs, and stakeholder interests.
Resolve cross-functional challenges that span organizational boundaries.
Help leaders make decisions faster and with greater confidence.
Develops, drives, and executes multiple projects/programs and teams across organizational boundaries as a project lead through defining plans, goals, deliverables, feedback, resource balancing, and timing expectations; proactively identifies complex roadblocks and addresses them.
Identifies, evaluates, and proposes new transformation project work/deals based on unmet needs.
Improve the Operating Model
Assess how work flows across teams, processes, and functions.
Recommend organizational, governance, and process improvements that increase efficiency and accountability.
Establish frameworks that clarify ownership, decision rights, and performance management.
Executive Thought Partner
Create executive-ready business content, decision frameworks, and recommendations.
Lead structured problem solving on ambiguous, high-impact business issues.
Anticipate downstream impacts of strategic decisions and help leaders navigate tradeoffs.
Influence without authority across a highly matrixed environment towards a common goal and challenges status quo
Leads, manages, and adjusts plans and projects to achieve desired outcomes in partnership with functional partners, field and corporate leaders. Collaborates to identify focus areas.
Demonstrates influence through partners across multiple divisions. Influences for impact by motivating others to buy into vision and execution.
What Success Looks Like
Leadership has a clear, shared view of the future-state SDI operating model.
Complex business decisions are made with greater speed and clarity.
Business processes become simpler, more scalable, and easier to operate.
Stakeholders align around common objectives and priorities.
Investments across people, process, policy, and technology support a coherent long-term direction.
Plan Design, Implementation lead to positive seller outcomes and business outcomes improved through simplification and better business design.
Qualifications
Required/minimum qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, Engineering, or related field AND 5+ years experience in business consulting, sales, sales operations, information technology (IT), account management, business development, marketing, IT field sales, or a related field OR equivalent experience.
- 6+ years experience in in Near Term Strategy (2 years out), Management Consulting, Sales, or Finance.
Additional or preferred qualifications
- Experience leading business transformation, strategy, operations, consulting, business architecture, or operating model design.
- Strategic thinking and structured problem-solving skills.
- Experience influencing leaders and driving alignment across diverse stakeholder groups.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity and define direction where none exists.
- Communication, storytelling, and executive presence.
- Experience in sales compensation, sales operations, finance, revenue operations, or large-scale business transformation.
- Experience defining operating models, business capabilities, governance structures, or organizational design.
- Familiarity with Microsoft sales motions, incentive compensation, or go-to-market strategy.
Sales Strategy Enablement IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, Engineering, or related field and 5+ years experience in business consulting, sales, sales operations, IT, account management, business development, marketing, or related field (or equivalent experience)
- 6+ years experience in Near Term Strategy (2 years out), Management Consulting, Sales, or Finance
- Experience leading business transformation, strategy, operations, consulting, business architecture, or operating model design
- Strategic thinking and structured problem-solving skills
- Experience influencing leaders and driving alignment across diverse stakeholder groups
- Ability to navigate ambiguity and define direction where none exists
- Communication, storytelling, and executive presence
- Experience in sales compensation, sales operations, finance, revenue operations, or large-scale business transformation
- Experience defining operating models, business capabilities, governance structures, or organizational design
- Familiarity with Microsoft sales motions, incentive compensation, or go-to-market strategy
Microsoft Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Microsoft and has not been reviewed or approved by Microsoft.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is presented as broadly competitive overall, with clear role/level/location variation and an emphasis on using posted ranges and band information for apples-to-apples comparisons.
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Retirement Support — Retirement benefits are described as a standout, highlighted by a strong 401(k) match structure and immediate vesting, plus additional plan features for tax-advantaged saving.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-oriented benefits are portrayed as a meaningful strength, with substantial paid parental leave and added supports like back-up care and adoption/surrogacy assistance.
Microsoft Insights
What We Do
At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our mission is grounded in both the world in which we live and the future we strive to create. Today, we live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, and the transformation we are driving across our businesses is designed to enable Microsoft and our customers to thrive in this world.
