Starting to Fall Apart - Sales Engineer Proofpoint Employee Review

The pooled compensation plans at Proofpoint have made it difficult for SEs to achieve their yearly quota. SEs are often referred to as the backbone of the company, however; they are paid 5/10 of 1% (.005%) of every dollar of new ARR. Additionally, they are paid 1/10 of 1% (.001) of every dollar for renewals. In contrast, the account managers are paid 15% and 1%, respectively. Since the company went private when Thoma Bravo purchased it, yearly shares are no longer issued to offset weak commissions. Historically, SEs were compensated yearly with stock incentives paid out over a four-year period. Thus the longer you stayed at Proofpoint, the better your total compensation. The pooled model limits your ability to achieve Presidents Club since SEs are stack-ranked and hand-selected to go to Club. The account managers supported by the SE can be over 150% and qualify for Club, but the SE will not be present because they are not in the top N of global revenue for all SEs. While some companies raise the quota, Proofpoint keeps the quota flat but takes accounts away, which is ultimately the same thing. You will lose accounts every year, making reaching your quota harder and harder. Again, this is where being pooled hurts the SEs, they are lucky if their region can make it to 100% across all account managers in a region. To be clear, SEs are typically tied to 2 account managers, however; the SE carries the number for all the account managers in a given region. It's just too hard to make a decent commission. Lastly, they have horrible 401K matching capped at $1500 for the year.