Lead Software Engineer - Platform Services

Salesforce; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 173,000 - 286,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to shape the architecture of a scalable, cloud-native Platform Services platform within the Digital Marketing Technology organization in the United States. You will lead hands-on technical work across architecture, platform innovation, and large-scale distributed systems, mentoring engineers and elevating engineering standards.

You’ll partner with product, architecture, and platform teams to design cloud-native services powering Salesforce’s global

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software development in large-scale, distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture and design of scalable, secure, and resilient platform services.
• Drive technical strategy and influence architectural decisions across engineering teams.
• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to shape technical roadmaps aligned with business goals.
• Design and deliver high-scale distributed systems and APIs supporting Salesforce’s global digital experiences.
• Champion engineering excellence through best practices in system design, testing, observability, and CI/CD.
• Mentor engineers and elevate engineering standards across teams.
• Evolve platform capabilities to enable dynamic, personalized customer experiences globally.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

API design

AI-assisted development

Node.js / JavaScript

AWS / GCP

Microservices

Security best practices

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS or related field

Tools

AWS

GCP

Terraform

REST / GraphQL

DynamoDB / NoSQL

Kafka / Kinesis

Neo4j / Neptune

Job description

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.

Lead Software Engineer - Platform Services

At Salesforce, we’re inspiring the future of business with AI + Data + CRM. Guided by our core values, we help companies across every industry connect with customers in entirely new ways - while empowering our employees to innovate, grow, and make an impact. Our Digital Marketing Technology organization is transforming how prospects, customers, and Trailblazers engage with Salesforce online. We are building a unified digital platform that powers personalized, intelligent, and scalable experiences across Salesforce.com and the broader Trailblazer ecosystem. We’re looking for a Lead Software Engineer to help shape the architecture and evolution of this platform while driving technical excellence across globally scaled digital experiences.

About the Role

This role sits within the Platform Services team in Salesforce’s Digital Marketing Technology organization. As a Lead Software Engineer, you will provide hands‑on technical leadership across architecture, platform innovation, and large-scale distributed systems. You’ll partner closely with engineering, product, architecture, and platform teams to design and build scalable cloud-native services that power Salesforce’s global digital ecosystem. This is a highly collaborative individual contributor role focused on solving complex technical challenges while mentoring engineers and elevating engineering standards across teams.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the architecture and design of scalable, secure, and resilient platform services
• Drive technical strategy and influence architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams
• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to shape technical roadmaps aligned with business goals
• Design and deliver high-scale distributed systems and APIs supporting Salesforce’s global digital experiences
• Champion engineering excellence through best practices in system design, testing, observability, scalability, and operational maturity
• Drive innovation in Agile development, DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud-native engineering practices
• Evaluate and adopt modern technologies and AI-assisted engineering workflows that improve developer productivity and software quality
• Mentor and coach engineers while fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Help evolve platform capabilities that enable dynamic and personalized customer experiences globally

Who We’re Looking For

• Strong technical leader with deep experience building and scaling distributed systems
• Hands‑on engineer passionate about solving complex platform and architecture challenges
• Experience working within modern digital, marketing technology, or customer identity ecosystems
• Strong collaborator who can influence technical direction across organizations
• Engineer who effectively leverages AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering productivity and accelerate software delivery
• Passion for building scalable, reliable, and secure customer-facing systems

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software development experience in designing, building, scaling, and maintaining large-scale, highly performant, and resilient production services.
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science or related technical subject area or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience in microservices architecture, domain driven design, and RESTful and GraphQL API's.
• Experience building high-scale microservices on AWS (preferred), GCP, or other public cloud substrates.
• Experience with AWS components like API Gateway, Lambdas, SNS, SQS, ElastiCache, AppSync etc and NoSQL databases like DynamoDB, Graph databases (Neo4j, Neptune, etc), and Data streams (Kafka, Kinesis, etc).
• Experience developing back-end software using JavaScript or TypeScript and runtimes like Node.js (preferred).
• Experience with web security, including JWT lifecycle management, CORS, CSP, and XSS prevention.
• AI fluency and Proven experience using AI coding assistants (Cursor, Windsurf , Codex etc) to accelerate the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle).
• Experience in test-driven development and testing frameworks like Jest, Playwright, etc.
• Experience in Service orchestration using tools like Terraform (preferred).
• Experience in Consumer/B2C identity package implementations such as Okta /Auth0 and Identity protocols like OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect etc (preferred).
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.

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.

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 typical base salary range for this position is $172,500 - $260,100 annually.

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

We're Salesforce, the Customer Company, inspiring the future of business with AI + Data + CRM.

Leading with our core values, we help companies across every industry blaze new trails and connect with customers in a whole new way.

And, we empower you to be a Trailblazer, too - driving your performance and career growth, charting new paths, and improving the state of the world.

If you believe in business as the greatest platform for change and in companies doing well and doing good - you've come to the right place.