Data, Principal Architect

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Overview

Job Category : Software Engineering

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.

Salesforce is seeking a visionary, innovative, and deeply technical Principal Architect to lead the architectural strategy and design for Salesforce's enterprise data, AI / ML, and automation platforms. Reporting to Salesforce's Chief Data Officer, this VP-level architect will own the entire data and ML / AI platform architecture and its seamless integration across all other platform and application domains at Salesforce. As Salesforce builds the first agentic enterprise, a cohesive, scalable, and intelligent data architecture is more critical than ever before to enable humans and agents to deliver success together.

This pivotal role is the single-threaded architectural owner responsible for the blueprint of our entire enterprise data ecosystem. This leader will drive the technical strategy to power data activations, automations, agents, and analytics across the enterprise with a trusted, resilient, and flexible architecture. They will ensure our architecture is robust, scalable, and forward-looking, capable of processing billions of events per day and providing new capabilities to Salesforce through technologies like vector databases, graph databases, ontology systems, unstructured data processing, LLM model distillation, and much more. This is a unique opportunity to shape the future of data and AI at Salesforce, driving significant business impact and innovation at scale.

Your Impact & Responsibilities

Architectural Vision & Strategy : Define and champion a long-term technical vision for Salesforce's unified data, analytics, ML / AI, and automation platforms. Ensure the architecture aligns with the company strategy, customer needs, and the product roadmap.

Technical Roadmap & Execution : Develop and manage a multi-year architectural roadmap. Guide the organization in critical technology choices and drive end-to-end design for data platforms, analytics systems, ML / AI infrastructure, and automation systems.

Platform Design & Development : Lead the design of scalable, distributed data platforms on cloud infrastructure, particularly AWS. Provide architectural guidance to product managers, engineers, and data scientists. Drive decisions on data management, analytic processing, customer data platforms, LLMs, vector / graph databases, and agentic development models.

Cross-Functional Leadership : Collaborate with engineering, data science, product, and business units. Influence stakeholders at all levels to ensure architectural alignment and success.

Stakeholder Management : Engage with executives to communicate architectural strategies, secure buy-in, and translate business requirements into scalable solutions.

Technical Mentorship & Development : Build and mentor a community of senior technical talent. Foster innovation and continuous improvement.

Governance & Operational Excellence : Implement best practices for platform architecture, data modeling, and lifecycle management. Ensure uptime, data quality, reliability, and governance / privacy compliance.

Industry Thought Leadership : Represent Salesforce at technical conferences, customer engagements, and industry forums.

Required Qualifications

15-20+ years of experience in software architecture, design, and development, with 7-10+ years in a Principal-level or VP-level architectural role focused on enterprise-scale data, AI, or technology platforms.

Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field, or equivalent work experience.

Proven track record of designing, building, and launching complex, data-intensive, transactional systems on cloud platforms (especially AWS).

Deep hands-on expertise with large-scale data platforms and technologies, including data lakes (AWS S3, Azure Data Lake), data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift), columnar store databases (Vertica, ClickHouse), data formats (Parquet, ORC), and processing engines (Spark, Databricks, DBT).

Expertise in modern data and AI architecture, including LLMs, vector / graph databases, agentic development models, ML engineering, and ontology systems.

Domain-Driven Design (DDD) expertise with ability to model complex domains and establish ubiquitous language; collaborate with domain experts.

Microservices and Event-Driven Architecture experience.

Modern software development practices with Agile, Scrum, Kanban; experience with CI / CD, DevOps, and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation).

API design and management experience (REST, GraphQL); understanding of API gateways and service meshes.

Architectural governance and quality skills; ability to conduct architectural reviews and provide guidance.

Strong data modeling skills and data architecture expertise.

Strategic thinking and problem-solving; ability to synthesize complex concepts into a clear architectural vision.

Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to present to executives and technical teams.

Proven ability to work cross-functionally in a global, matrixed organization.

Ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed (~15-25%).

Preferred Qualifications

Deep technical expertise for Salesforce products and platform ecosystem (Salesforce Data Cloud, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Informatica).

Experience with data governance, privacy regulations, and ethical AI frameworks in practice.

Active participation in data & AI / ML research, open-source community, and industry events.

Experience building or contributing to enterprise products that incorporate ML / AI decision systems.

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 and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do 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

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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.

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 qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. For Washington-based roles, base salary range : $281,000 to $449,600. For California-based roles, base salary range : $307,100 to $491,500.

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