Software Architect at Salesforce in Palo Alto, CA

Software Architect Location: California - San Francisco To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts. Job Category Software Engineering Job Details About Salesforce Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all. Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You’re in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce. Overview of the Role: Architecting the Core: Drive the end-to-end architecture for mission-critical products and services, ensuring enterprise-grade scalability, maintainability, and reliability. You'll craft overarching architectural principles, frameworks, and standards. Responsibilities: Hands-On Innovation: Maintain your coding edge by dedicating approximately 20% of your time to hands-on development, proof-of-concepts (POCs), and validating new architectural patterns. Strategic Partner: Partner directly with SVPs, EVPs, and business leaders to translate complex challenges into actionable technical roadmaps. You'll drive strategic technology initiatives, providing critical input into long-range product requirements and best practices. Distributed Systems & Cloud Mastery: Leverage your deep expertise in distributed systems, backend technologies, and diverse cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Alibaba) to architect robust and high-performing solutions. Pioneering AI Integration: Spearhead the integration of cutting-edge AI components into our platforms, shaping the future of intelligent CRM. Leadership & Mentorship: Cultivate a culture of engineering excellence by actively mentoring and guiding a significant number of engineers (20-100+), fostering their technical development and understanding of complex architectures. Cross-Functional Catalyst: Act as a critical liaison, working consultatively across a large engineering organization to improve communication, foster teamwork, and drive technical alignment. Continuous Improvement: Champion continuous improvement in platform reliability and serviceability, driving research and prototyping of innovative technologies. Operational Excellence: Participate in the team’s on-call rotation, applying your deep expertise to resolve complex real-time challenges and ensure highly available services. Required Qualifications: 15+ (ideally 20+) years of hands-on software development experience with a proven track record of designing, building, and delivering large, complex enterprise-grade projects. Mastery across multiple programming languages and platforms, with a strong understanding of architectural patterns for highly scalable and resilient systems. Demonstrated expertise in architecting and implementing distributed systems, backend technologies, and cloud-native solutions (AWS, GCP, Alibaba experience highly valued). A passion for innovation, with experience driving research, POCs, and integrating emerging technologies like AI. Exceptional ability to independently craft and deliver strategic technical reports and performance presentations to executive leadership and external audiences. Proven success in fostering technical performance architecture that addresses the most complex performance bottlenecks. Deep experience in setting long-term design strategies that span multiple complex projects. Strong informal mentorship capabilities, with a passion for guiding and developing engineering talent. You build an environment for clear and open discussion, involving the right people to resolve critical issues. Comfortable working within short release cycles and the full software development lifecycle, with experience in publicly released, multi-release products. Proficiency with Agile development methodologies (e.g., Scrum). A related technical degree is required. Preferred Qualifications: A demonstrated, genuine AI-first approach to engineering. Using AI to move faster, build fluency across the stack, and contribute well beyond your core specialty. Experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codex, Cursor, etc.) in development workflows Advanced prompt engineering skills and the ability to write precise, structured prompts and cultivate the system context that makes AI outputs reliable, secure, and production-ready. LI-Y* Unleash Your Potential When you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance andbe your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you cando your best. Together, we’ll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love. Apply today to not only shape the future — but to redefine what’s possible — for yourself, for AI, and the world. Accommodations If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form. Please note that Salesforce uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help our recruiters assess and evaluate candidates’ resumes and qualifications throughout the recruiting process. Humans will always make any candidate selection and hiring decisions. Please see our Candidate Privacy Statement for more information about how we use your personal data and your rights, including with regard to use of AI tools and opt out options. Posting Statement Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that’s inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications – without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law. This policy applies to current and prospective employees, no matter where they are in their Salesforce employment journey. It also applies to recruiting, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, assessment of job performance, discipline, termination, and everything in between. Recruiting, hiring, and promotion decisions at Salesforce are fair and based on merit. The same goes for compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, reduction in workforce, recall, training, and education. In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Salesforce will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions. The typical base salary range for this position is $197,300 - $365,200 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $237,700 - $401,400 annually. The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable. Additional Locations: California - Palo Alto, Washington - Seattle, Washington - Bellevue