Disappointing Direction; Underwhelming Leadership; Chaotic Organization - Solution Engineer Salesforce Employee Review

2.0
Jun 16, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You'll find interesting projects to work on and driven colleagues to learn from. The individual rank-and-file folks at Salesforce make the company what it is.

Cons

I left a review over three years ago that was five stars. What the employees at this company have endured since that time is unfair and undeserved. The "Stakeholder Capitalism" fiction has been laid bare for all to see. Salesforce is run by and for the interest of shareholders and nobody else. This is consistent with every company, but the misalignment between reality and executive leadership’s messaging is glaring. There’s a lack of authenticity at Salesforce and it starts at the top. Salesforce has made the conscious decision to eliminate customer support and outsource it to untrained individuals employed by managed service providers. The result of this is, predictably, a terrible customer experience getting tickets resolved. Customer support and success aRe increasingly becoming responsibilities of the sales team, and especially, Solution Engineers. You will spend a vanishingly small amount of time selling the further you move upmarket. The lack of performance standards for management is hurting the company. Salesforce grew at a breakneck speed throughout the 2010's and many unqualified, unmotivated, and untrained individual contributors were able to make the jump to management as a result of this windfall. Now, the company is suffering. Managers can be as neglectful as they want and there will be no consequences. In fact, of the five worst managers I have worked with at Salesforce, three of them were either promoted or sent to Club in the last year. Management is a boys' club, and you're not invited--especially if you prefer to lead with performance rather than politics. The amount of posturing that takes place at Salesforce is nauseating. The product roadmap is a mess. As a Solution Engineer, you are expected to be the liaison between your customers and our products. Our documentation has suffered and the enablements feel like I’m being sold on selling our products. Newsflash: you don’t need to sell me on selling our products—you pay me to do it. I have sat through more Data Cloud enablements than I care to count, and it's clear that the (few) people who understand the technology lack the industry expertise to bring it to market outside of B2C use cases. I could go on, but Salesforce is a shadow of its former self. Our values of Trust, Customer Success, and Innovation have all suffered significantly. Nobody in positions of power seems interested in bringing them back. They're window-dressing at this point. Salesforce used to be a great place to build your career. Now, with hiring freezes, grotesque politics, and lazy leadership, I would not recommend working at Salesforce for those who are in "career-building mode". If you want to get paid a lot of money for a comparatively small effort, you'd fit in as a manager here.

Explore other reviews about Salesforce

5.0
Jul 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture , great managers, great benefits

Cons

Constant executive Leadership turnover , pay

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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