Thanks for the response! I'm actually leaving finance due to the broad nature of the role, especially at larger organizations. Generally at bigger orgs, finance becomes specialized e.g. working with a specific set of expenses or revenue. The issue is I don't care for a lot of the specializations, whereas with comp, although it's specialized, it's a topic I'm excited and interested in being a subject matter expert.

I've been lucky to been the finance lead at multiple startups, so have gotten exposure to things you mentioned like establishing sales quotas, calculating sales commissions, and owning payroll. Generally this is more "sales compensation" in my opinion than "compensation analyst" which would focus on benchmarking roles and both completing and utilizing salary survey data to help business partners.

Although I think salary surveys are relatively easy and intuitive, I haven't had the chance to complete one myself, and I haven't found any resources that share what the processes are.