Sr. Director/Enterprise Architect - Product Strategy

Salesforce, Inc.; Washington, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 218,000 - 365,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is seeking a visionary Senior Director of Product Strategy to join the Product Strategy & Innovation team. You will sit at the intersection of product vision, market intelligence, and technical architecture, shaping why and how Salesforce builds next.

You will lead a team of strategists crafting investment theses, evaluating gains from trust infrastructure, workflow automation, and agentic AI architectures.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience spanning product management, product strategy, technology strategy, or innovation roles.
• Experience leading teams of 3+ strategists, researchers, or product managers in fast-paced environments.
• Deep knowledge of AI and ML architectures, including agentic systems and LLM-based applications.

Responsibilities

• Lead product strategy for forward-looking innovation and whitespace identification across AI and platform portfolio.
• Drive strategy for offerings transitioning from internal capability to standalone or platform-integrated products.
• Develop frameworks for build–buy–partner decisions and integration of acquired technologies.

Skills

Product strategy

Leadership

AI/ML architectures

Enterprise software

Strategic thinking

Education

MBA or MS preferred

Job description

To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts. Job Category Product 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.

The Experience:

Salesforce is seeking a visionary Senior Director of Product Strategy to join our Product Strategy & Innovation team. This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of product vision, market intelligence, and technical architecture — helping define not just what Salesforce builds next, but why and how. Reporting directly to the SVP of Product Strategy, you will serve as a key architect of our forward‑looking product innovation agenda. You will lead and grow a team of product strategists charged with identifying emerging white spaces, evaluating build‑buy‑partner options, and translating complex technical and market dynamics into clear, executable product strategies. This role goes well beyond traditional corporate strategy. We are not looking for someone who reacts to the latest headlines or incoming M&A signals. We are building a team that gets ahead of trends — a group that proactively surfaces what Salesforce might be missing, stress‑tests assumptions, and shapes the decisions that will define our product platform for the next decade. From guiding the productization of emerging internal capabilities — spanning trust infrastructure, workflow automation, and agentic AI architectures — to framing investment theses around high‑growth sectors like supply chain agentification, developer tooling, and AI‑native systems of record, you will ensure Salesforce is building the right things, at the right time, with the right model.

What You'll Actually Be Doing:

• Lead product strategy for forward‑looking innovation, whitespace identification, and productization planning across Salesforce's AI and platform portfolio.
• Drive product strategy for emerging offerings moving from internal capability to standalone or platform‑integrated product — including trust infrastructure, workflow automation, agentic AI systems, and data platforms.
• Own and evolve a strategic framework for evaluating build‑buy‑partner decisions, including how and when to integrate acquired technologies into the core Salesforce platform versus taking them to market independently.
• Proactively identify and assess game‑changing market shifts — including the agentic coding revolution, AI‑native application architectures, supply chain automation, and open source commercialization trends — and translate these into actionable investment recommendations.
• Partner closely with the SVP to define 'what are we missing' across the product portfolio, filling gaps in strategic coverage that go beyond what reactive competitive intelligence can provide.
• Synthesize inputs from engineering, product management, research, M&A, and external sources to develop clear, evidence‑based points of view on where Salesforce should place strategic bets.
• Perform quantitative and competitive analytics to size market opportunities, assess competitive positioning, and support investment recommendations with data‑driven evidence.
• Partner with regional leadership to expand Salesforce's product strategy footprint into European markets, accounting for local regulatory requirements, competitive dynamics, and go‑to‑market nuances.
• Evaluate productization models — open source, platform‑bundled, standalone SaaS, API‑first — and build decision‑making frameworks that account for monetization, competitive dynamics, and developer adoption.
• Monitor venture investment trends, startup ecosystem signals, and technical research to stay ahead of emerging paradigms before they become conventional wisdom.
• Present strategic recommendations and options to the SVP and cross‑functional executives in a clear, structured, and data‑supported manner.
• Build and mentor a high‑performing strategy team, establishing processes for ongoing horizon scanning, opportunity assessment, and strategic synthesis.

You're Our Person If:

• 12+ years of experience spanning product management, product strategy, technology strategy, or innovation roles — preferably at an enterprise software or cloud platform company.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop teams of 3 or more strategists, researchers, or product managers in a fast‑paced, ambiguous environment.
• Deep working knowledge of AI and machine learning architectures, including agentic systems, LLM‑based applications, and AI integration patterns within enterprise platforms.
• Strong understanding of systems of record, data platforms, and enterprise application architectures, including how AI layers are introduced into or layered atop traditional SaaS infrastructure.
• Fluency in evaluating productization strategies, including trade‑offs between open source, proprietary, platform‑native, and standalone go‑to‑market models.
• Experience participating in or supporting M&A strategy, including acquisition thesis development, integration planning, or build‑buy‑partner evaluation.
• Ability to structure and communicate complex, multi‑variable strategic analyses for senior executive audiences — in writing, in presentations, and in live discussions.
• Comfort operating in contexts where the problem is not fully defined and the path forward requires both intellectual rigor and creative hypothesis generation.

Even Better If:

• Experience in product strategy or innovation roles at an AI‑first company, an enterprise platform vendor, or a technology‑focused management consulting firm.
• Familiarity with agentic coding tools, developer platform ecosystems, and the competitive landscape around AI‑assisted software development.
• Knowledge of supply chain, operations, or vertical AI automation and process agentification at enterprise scale.
• Track record of developing original investment or product theses — not simply synthesizing others' frameworks, but originating new points of view.
• Exposure to venture capital, corporate development, or startup ecosystem dynamics, with the ability to translate investment signals into product strategy implications.

Builder's mindset:

• You are energized by creating new things — teams, frameworks, markets — not just running existing processes.
• Experience working on both offensive (new market entry, new product launch) and defensive (competitive response, retention of strategic position) product strategies.
• MBA, MS, or equivalent advanced degree in a relevant discipline is a plus; demonstrated outcomes matter more than credentials.

Accommodations

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form.

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 Salesforce, it 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 $218,400 - $365,200 annually.

In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $263,200 - $401,400 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.