Ohana culture encourages a lazy work environment - Anonymous employee Salesforce Employee Review

2.0
Aug 29, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Employees are generally affable and have drunk the Kool Aid; Comp and Benefits are ok / comparable with others in the Cloud Industry

Cons

Salesforce software not as great as the company leadership thinks it is and recent product integrations have made some of the product suite confusing and unnecessarily complicated - IMV there is significant potential for an innovative start-up to steal large chunks of their customer base; Recent revenue growth appears to be mostly based on milking existing customers - not a lot of market share left to acquire - future growth will need to come from moving into new lines of business through more acquisitions. This in turn will lead to continued and increasing integration challenges and internal company friction; Biggest internal issue I see is that the 'Ohana' culture is leading to employees being too comfortable in their way of doing things and not striving enough for improvement. Combined with this, many managers have lulled themselves into following simplistic metrics and KPIs without understanding the underlying basis for the measurements, nor whether or not they are actually fit for purpose. Arising from this cultural laziness, leadership simply do not have the courage to challenge the status quo and drive the changes needed to improve the company's performance. The technology teams also need to do a better job dealing with the technical debt accumulated from acquiring companies whose technology stack was thrown together with little or no design review

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5.0
Jun 24, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Great culture and they take very good care of their employees. Unlimited PTO (within reason) and generous benefits.

Cons

My entire department was eliminated when they did their 10% reduction on the workforce.

4.0
Jul 9, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I've spent over 8 years with Salesforce in various management and individual contributor roles, all customer or partner facing. Some of the pros: - vibrant, fast paced culture - smart, fun, aggressive colleagues - management is focused on latest tech trends and staying or becoming a leader for many of them - by and large, customers and partners are very positive about the technology - good benefits and perqs - hip urban culture at HQ - a chart-your-own-course mentality that rewards those who aggressively seek out the job they want and pursue it, or sometimes even create it

Cons

After my long tenure and many Dreamforce conferences, I'm nearly fried. To say the culture is fast paced and the focus is always changing is an understatement. The reason Salesforce always seems on top, and chasing the latest trend, and in the press, is because employees are expected to run harder, carry more, cheer loudly, and pivot constantly. It's the world's biggest startup in behavior. But at the same time, with the recent influx of top career sales leaders from Oracle and what appears to be a board-level mandate for doubling revenue, employees are being asked to do even more with even less, fill higher quotas with smaller territories, less help, and the big company bureaucracy is rearing it's ugly head. Worse still is the politics. When you hire a bunch of smart, aggressive people, and put them in an environment of outsized expectations, throw in a bunch of re-orgs and changing management, and sprinkle with uncertainty and constantly changing priorities, you inevitably get people back stabbing each other and throwing others under the bus to appear smarter and more worthy of promotion. The few at the top will get very, very rich. The rest will lose the sense of personal ownership and start to wonder why they've given up health and family

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Salesforce Response
2y
It's not often that you get the opportunity to respond to a review 10 years in but your comprehensive and thoughtful review has managed to hold on as one of our most popular even a decade in :) It’s exciting to see that the things we love most about the Salesforce of today — super smart colleagues, being at the forefront of tech trends and establishing ourselves as leaders in the space, great benefits and perks to name a few — haven’t changed in the past 10 years. We acknowledge the challenges you faced, such as the pace, shifting priorities, and internal politics. Your advice on maintaining our foundational vision while avoiding big-company bureaucracy is helpful as we continue to grow as the #1 AI CRM. Salesforce is committed to balancing growth with employee well-being and staying true to our core values. We appreciate your insights and dedication over the years. Thanks again for your feedback!
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