Salesforce
Salesforce3 open roles

Lead Software Engineer, AI Labs (Product and Customer Facing)

$148–344kSan Francisco, CA, USOn-siteSeniorFull-time

Posted 11 days ago

The role in short

Embed with customers to design, build, and deploy production AI services and agentic solutions.

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.

We are building a new business unit meant to drive large-scale transformation through data, generative AI, and a leading platform that supports mission-critical workloads. In this role, you'll grow within a team of the most talented engineers and AI researchers in the world, as you contribute high-quality code to the hardest problems faced by our customers.

As a Software Engineer in this new business unit, you'll touch every phase of the product lifecycle. You'll own a range of responsibilities, from generating ideas and designing prototypes to executing features and shipping releases, while working alongside world-class engineers who will champion your growth. You'll work hand-in-hand with technical and non-technical colleagues to uncover real customer problems and deliver solutions that address them.

You'll rotate forward and embed directly with our most demanding customers and partners to quickly understand their greatest problems, then design and implement solutions against them. You'll apply your problem-solving ability, creativity, and technical skills to help organizations drive real impact in the world. You'll make use of everything around you: Salesforce products, open source technologies, and anything you and your team can build.

It doesn't matter what languages you know when you join us. What matters is that you can write clean, effective code and learn new languages quickly. Our software is constantly evolving, so we need engineers who can do the same. We also adapt to the diverse environments of our customers and deliver solutions that scale across disparate networks and infrastructure.

You'll be on the forefront of something Salesforce has never done before. You'll learn how to unpack a problem and understand the costs and consequences of its solution, pick up new technologies and languages, and even develop them yourself, all within a collaborative community that will support and challenge you as you grow.

Responsibilities

  • Work alongside motivated and talented engineers to bring cutting-edge theory into customer-facing practice
  • Build tools and pipelines to support ML and AI efforts
  • Design, build, deploy, and maintain production software and AI services, such as APIs, UIs, and agentic evaluators
  • Roll out scalable cloud architectures and the software that runs on them
  • Help with end-user requirements gathering and executive presentations
  • Understand the toughest customer problems and devise thoughtful solutions

Required Skills / Qualifications

  • B.S. in Computer Science with coursework in Artificial Intelligence (M.S. preferred)
  • 5+ years of industry experience in Software Engineering, with a focus on AI/ML (7-12 years for Lead, 4-8 years for Senior)
  • Proficiency in multiple programming languages such as Python, Go, Java, or C++
  • Strong background in APIs, data modeling, and databases
  • Experience with production cloud deployments such as AWS, GCP, or OCI
  • Experience field-debugging full-stack deployments
  • Demonstrated ability to work both independently and collaboratively in a dynamic environment
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills
  • Proven collaborator who can manage internal and external stakeholders and drive consensus across diverse engineering and product teams
  • Solid understanding of security principles and best practices
  • Passion for continuous learning in AI technologies and enthusiasm for mentoring peers
  • 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) in development workflows
  • High level of authorship

Preferred Skills / Qualifications

  • Experience with open-source technologies such as Kubernetes, Envoy, Grafana, React, and Redux
  • UI and graphic design sensibilities

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

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 $148,500 - $313,700 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $178,900 - $344,700 annually.

The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.

Prep for this interview

5 questions likely to come up at Salesforce, each matched to a line in this posting.

  1. 1Coding
    They wrote: “Proficiency in multiple programming languages such as Python, Go, Java, or C++”

    Here's a CSV export from a customer. Write a script that cleans it and loads it into our API.

    How to answer

    Why they ask: Very close to real FDE work. They watch how you handle bad rows and failures.

    1. Read with a proper CSV parser; check the header first
    2. Validate each row and collect errors, not crash on the first one
    3. Send in batches with retries and a clear report at the end
    4. Write one or two quick tests for the parsing

    Tip: Talk through edge cases out loud: encodings, missing fields, duplicates, rate limits.

  2. 2Cloud, deployment and security
    They wrote: “Experience with production cloud deployments such as AWS, GCP, or OCI”

    How would you debug a deployment that works in staging but fails at the customer's site?

    How to answer

    Why they ask: Customer environments differ in ways you can't see. This tests method under pressure.

    1. Compare versions, config and environment variables
    2. Check network rules, proxies and certificates (common in enterprise)
    3. Look at resource limits and permissions
    4. Add the missing check to your install steps afterwards

    Tip: List the usual suspects and how you'd check each without full access.

  3. 3Discovery and scoping
    They wrote: “Help with end-user requirements gathering and executive presentations”

    Tell me about a time the customer asked for one thing but needed another.

    How to answer

    Why they ask: Good FDEs spot when a request is a guess at a solution. They want proof you can redirect a customer without losing their trust.

    1. What they asked for, and the detail that made you doubt it
    2. How you tested the doubt (shadowed users, looked at logs, ran a quick prototype)
    3. How you made the case to the customer
    4. What shipped and what changed for them

    Tip: Pick a story where you checked your hunch with data or users before pushing back.

  4. 4Integrations and APIs
    They wrote: “Design, build, deploy, and maintain production software and AI services, such as APIs, UIs, and agentic evaluators”

    How would you set up single sign-on for a large customer?

    How to answer

    Why they ask: SSO (SAML or OAuth/OIDC) is a common first task in enterprise deals and a common source of delays.

    1. Confirm their identity provider (Okta, Entra ID, Google) and protocol
    2. Exchange metadata and test in a staging tenant first
    3. Map user groups to roles in your product
    4. Plan for user removal: what happens when someone leaves the company

    Tip: Mention the people involved, and the protocol second. The customer's identity team usually controls the timeline.

  5. 5Data and SQL
    They wrote: “Strong background in APIs, data modeling, and databases”

    The customer's data is spread across five systems that disagree. How do you get one clean view?

    How to answer

    Why they ask: Real deployments rarely have one source of truth. They want a practical approach, not a perfect one.

    1. List each system and what it's the best source for
    2. Pick matching keys and decide how to handle records that don't match
    3. Load into one place with clear rules, and keep the raw copies
    4. Show the customer the mismatches; they often fix the source

    Tip: Name the system the business trusts most for each field, and get the customer to agree.

Not the one? Get the next one by email

New roles land here every day. Pick what you want to hear about.

FDE Info

Want the job, not just the posting? Learn how FDEs work.

FDE Info is our free weekly newsletter for forward deployed engineers: tools, field notes from real deployments, and how FDE teams hire and pay.

Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.

More at Salesforce

Similar roles at other companies

Salesforce

$148–344k · On-site

Apply