Lead Member of Technical Staff — API Platform

Salesforce; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 173,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is seeking a Lead Member of Technical Staff (LMTS) to join the API Platform team within Engineering Development and Delivery. You will provide technical leadership for foundational platform capabilities, drive architecture across multiple teams, and translate business needs into durable technical solutions.

You will mentor engineers, shape contracts, and accelerate delivery with AI-assisted tools.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience delivering enterprise/platform solutions.
• Experience leading architecture for complex systems across teams.
• Strong proficiency in Java, Python, or JavaScript.
• Deep understanding of API design, distributed systems, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Experience designing AWS infrastructure for production services.
• Experience with IaC and automated provisioning of cloud infrastructure.
• Experience designing CI/CD pipelines for testing, release management, and deployment.
• Experience using AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate delivery with strong quality.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, design, and delivery of scalable API platform solutions across multiple products.
• Define technical strategy and roadmap for API platform capabilities.
• Establish API-first and contract-first engineering practices across teams.
• Provide technical leadership for cross-team initiatives and resolve architectural ambiguity.
• Design platform patterns enabling parallel feature development and independent team execution.
• Mentor engineers, provide architectural guidance, and raise engineering standards.
• Leverage AI-assisted tools to accelerate architecture, development, testing, and documentation while enforcing quality and security controls.
• Lead design reviews ensuring scalability, availability, and operability across services.
• Drive DevOps maturity with automated testing, CI/CD, observability, and release management.
• Identify architectural gaps and lead initiatives to address them before bottlenecks appear.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production/platform issues spanning services and teams.
• Use telemetry to evaluate platform effectiveness and guide technical investments.

Skills

Technical leadership

API design

Java/Python/JS

AWS & cloud infra

CI/CD pipelines

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

GitHub Actions

Terraform

Job description

Job Category

Software Engineering

Job Details

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 looking for a highly skilled and experienced Lead Member of Technical Staff (LMTS) to join our API Platform team within Engineering Development and Delivery. In this role, you will provide technical leadership for foundational platform capabilities that enable engineering teams across the organization to rapidly and reliably deliver new applications and services.

You will lead the design and evolution of scalable, secure, and extensible API platform solutions, influence architecture and engineering practices across multiple teams, and drive complex initiatives from technical strategy through production delivery. You will partner closely with architects, product managers, engineering leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders to translate business and platform needs into durable technical solutions.

As an LMTS, you will be expected to operate effectively in areas of ambiguity, establish technical direction, raise the engineering bar, and multiply the effectiveness of engineers and teams around you.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, and delivery of scalable, reliable, and secure foundational enterprise platform solutions that span multiple products and enable rapid application development across the organization.
• Define and drive the technical strategy and roadmap for key API Platform capabilities, balancing immediate product needs with long-term architectural scalability and maintainability.
• Establish and champion an API-first and contract-first engineering methodology across cross-functional teams, driving consistency, interoperability, governance, and quality across API offerings.
• Provide technical leadership for complex, cross-team initiatives, identifying architectural dependencies, resolving technical ambiguity, and aligning teams around common platform patterns and standards.
• Design platform capabilities and engineering patterns that enable parallel feature development, independent team execution, and incremental software delivery at scale.
• Serve as a technical authority and trusted partner to engineers, architects, product managers, and engineering leadership, influencing technical decisions across organizational boundaries.
• Mentor and develop engineers, providing architectural guidance, design feedback, and technical coaching while raising engineering standards across the broader organization.
• Effectively leverage AI-assisted engineering tools and practices to accelerate architecture, development, testing, debugging, and documentation while establishing appropriate quality, security, and engineering controls.
• Lead technical design reviews and ensure solutions meet expectations for scalability, availability, security, performance, operability, and maintainability.
• Drive engineering excellence through strong practices in automated testing, continuous integration, observability, release management, and DevOps automation.
• Identify systemic technical risks, architectural gaps, and opportunities for platform simplification, and lead initiatives to address them before they become organizational bottlenecks.
• Troubleshoot and lead resolution of complex production and platform issues, including problems that span multiple systems, services, or organizational boundaries.
• Use metrics, telemetry, and engineering data to evaluate platform effectiveness, identify opportunities for improvement, and guide technical investment decisions.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry practices and determine where they can materially improve the scalability, developer experience, reliability, or efficiency of the platform.

Required Skills And Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience designing and delivering large-scale enterprise or platform solutions.
• Demonstrated experience leading the architecture and delivery of complex systems spanning multiple teams, services, or product areas.
• Strong proficiency in one or more programming languages, such as Java, Python, or JavaScript.
• Deep understanding of API design, distributed systems, service-oriented architecture, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Experience designing AWS infrastructure for production web services using technologies such as VPC, Lambda, ECS, RDS, and API Gateway.
• Strong experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and automated provisioning of public cloud infrastructure.
• Experience designing and evolving automated CI/CD and DevOps pipelines for application testing, release management, and deployment, such as GitHub Actions or GitLab pipelines.
• Experience using AI-assisted coding and engineering tools to accelerate delivery while maintaining strong quality, security, and review controls.
• Proven track record of delivering high-quality, business-critical software solutions in complex and fast-paced environments.
• Demonstrated ability to make sound architectural decisions under ambiguity and communicate technical tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to identify root causes and develop solutions for complex, systemic engineering challenges.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams without relying on organizational authority.
• Experience building APIs and services using contract-first development practices.
• Proven ability to use metrics and data to drive continuous improvement, technical prioritization, and engineering decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers and raise technical standards across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Salesforce technologies, platforms, or large-scale enterprise SaaS environments.
• Deep knowledge of enterprise API architecture, API lifecycle management, integration patterns, and governance best practices.
• AWS certifications or equivalent demonstrated cloud architecture expertise.
• Experience designing event-driven and asynchronous architectures using technologies such as AWS Kinesis, SNS, SQS, or EventBridge.
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience designing reusable CI/CD platforms, deployment frameworks, or developer productivity tooling used across multiple engineering teams.
• Experience building highly available, observable, and resilient distributed systems at enterprise scale.
• Experience defining technical standards, reference architectures, or platform capabilities adopted across a broad engineering organization.

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.

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.

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 $172,500 - $260,100 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $207,800 - $285,800 annually. The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.