Senior Manager, Commissions

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.

Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

Chainguard's commission function is largely owned by one person today, and we're looking to change that. We're hiring a Commission Manager to build real redundancy into how we design, calculate, validate, and administer sales compensation.

In this role, you'll partner closely with Sales, Finance, and Partnerships to strengthen our commission structure and prepare it for the next stage of growth. This is not a role where you'll learn commissions on the job. You should already be fluent in commission design, plan mechanics, and payout economics. Our sales organization moves quickly and expects timely, accurate answers.

You'll own the technical and analytical side of commissions, including calculation, reporting, and payout validation, while also playing an active role in compensation plan design. You'll advise on accelerators, gates, multipliers, and mega deal structures as we work to bring our commission pay rate down from an aggressive ~50% of net new bookings toward a best in class benchmark of ~20 to 25%.

You'll also mentor and develop our Senior Financial Analyst as she progresses toward a management track and serve as a key backup who can step in and run the commission function end to end when needed.

This is a foundational hire with a significant runway. We're not asking you to build a fully staffed team on day one, but we are asking you to own outcomes, establish scalable processes, and build the infrastructure that will allow the function to grow with the business.

• Own hands on commission calculation, validation, and reporting, including stepping into operational work when needed rather than simply overseeing it

• Partner directly with functional leaders across Sales, Solutions Engineering, and Partnerships to evaluate what's working in our compensation plans and where they need to flex

• Advise on compensation plan design, including accelerator gates, multiplier structures, and payout mechanics, and bring data backed recommendations to leadership discussions

• Own commission structuring for mega deals as we close increasingly large transactions in the $4M to $5M+ range

• Help drive our commission pay rate from approximately 50% of net new bookings toward a 20 to 25% benchmark

• Manage global commission plans across approximately five plan types, including Account Executives, Solutions Engineers, Partnerships, BDRs, and Renewals, across multiple geographies

• Mentor and develop our Senior Financial Analyst as she grows toward a management role

• Play a key role in FY28 compensation plan design and strategy discussions

• Build scalable processes, documentation, controls, and infrastructure to support the continued growth of the commission function

• Experience owning commissions at a high growth software company, ideally supporting a sales organization of 300 to 400+ representatives

• Proven experience in commission design, not just calculation and execution, including familiarity with accelerator structures, plan optimization, and payout economics

• Experience