A shadow of it's former self - Engineering Director Salesforce Employee Review

1.0
May 26, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salesforce was a market leader in the SAAS space with an great "Ohana" culture for 2 decades. The culture was awesome, there were learning opportunities at every corner and people really believed in the CEO.

Cons

For the past 6 years, the company is in steady decline. - The Acquisition route to growth has been disastrous. Mulesoft, Tableau, Slack were all acquired with the promise of tremendous growth. The only outcome has been, these once good companies have been torn to shreds, with all their leadership having fled long ago. The integrations have been weak at best. - The CEO stepped away for many years, letting the culture rot. He came back only when the Co-CEO called it quits and activist investors threatened his throne. The CEOs response has been to layoff 1000s of high performing engineers so he could keep his position as Chairman and CEO. Poor attitude and sometimes outright threats to employees in internal slack channels by him has destroyed the confidence in his leadership. - Every Business Unit has been re-org'ed multiple time in the last 8 months, resulting in chaos and confusion. - EVPs / SVPs and VPs who remain in the company are basically "yes' men who are trying to protect their butts. - Ridiculous developer metrics like number of checkins, lines of code written per sprint are draining engineers morale. Self-preservation has taken the place of collaboration in engineering teams. - Innovation has all but grinded to a halt. The tech stack is ancient, monolith and horrible to maintain.

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5.0
Jul 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits Good pay Free snacks

Cons

Autonomy Location Redundancy Political Kpis

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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