Applied AI Architect (Principal/Lead)

About Salesforce

Applications will be accepted until 01/31/2027.

About the Role

Our architect team is organized into four domains that together make the platform work for customers: Platform Advantage (why Salesforce, why now), Emerging Tech & UI Innovation (agent execution and dev tooling), Data & AI Excellence (data, semantics, and AI context), and Governance & Trust (identity, security, and audit). This req can land in any of the four, based on where your deepest expertise fits and where the team has the most need at the time of hire.

Across all four domains, the DNA is the same: you lead with the customer's business and technical problem, not a product pitch, you're fluent across Salesforce and its alternatives, and you stay engaged through execution so the work actually lands, not just the recommendation.

What You'll Do

Your day-to-day will concentrate in one or two of the following, depending on domain placement:

• Agent Architecture (Platform Advantage / Governance & Trust): orchestration, agent-to-agent interaction, state and memory, guardrails, testing.
• MCP & Capability Architecture (Platform Advantage / Emerging Tech): exposing business capabilities for agents to discover and act on, not just raw objects.
• Data 360 & Semantic Architecture (Data & AI Excellence): unified customer data, semantic layers, and the context AI needs to be useful.
• Headless & Composable Architecture (Platform Advantage / Emerging Tech): APIs, headless experiences, and composable extensions of Salesforce beyond the standard UI.
• AI-Assisted Development (Emerging Tech): coding assistants, reviewing AI-generated work, dev lifecycle and quality practices.
• AI Governance & Security (Governance & Trust): identity and permissions, data access, agent authority, human-in-the-loop controls, audit.

Regardless of domain, you'll also

• Work collaboratively across multiple pre and post sale teams.
• Align C-suite stakeholders around a shared view of a business problem and map it to a capability someone can act on.
• Help resolve platform-fit ambiguity for customers facing conflicting internal recommendations or a troubled prior rollout.
• Name ambiguity and route it explicitly to the right domain rather than letting unclear work default to whoever's in the room.

What We're Looking For

Required

• 5+ years in enterprise or solutions architecture, with direct experience influencing senior technical and business stakeholders.
• Experience with AI tooling to build solutions, learn new skills, and be more efficient with your job.
• Deep, credible expertise in at least one of the six focus areas above, deep enough to be the final word in a room, not conversational familiarity.
• Fluency across the Salesforce platform or at least one major alternative / adjacent technology relevant to your focus area.
• A track record of staying engaged through delivery, including recovering stalled or politically stuck work.
• B.S., M.S. or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering or MIS

Preferred

• Working knowledge of a second focus area above, enough to know when to hand off rather than overreach.
• Experience untangling a failed or stalled enterprise rollout (data, MDM, platform, or AI) for a customer.
• Strong visual communication skills for architecture storytelling.

Domain Placement

Final domain assignment (Platform Advantage, Emerging Tech & UI Innovation, Data & AI Excellence, or Governance & Trust) is determined during the interview process based on demonstrated depth and current team need, not fixed at the time of posting.

Posting Statement

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.