Business Insider analyzed salary data that Salesforce has to disclose when it applies for visas on behalf of foreign workers to find how much it pays for jobs in engineering, data analytics, product management, sales, and more.
- This list is not a comprehensive look at what Salesforce pays because it only contains salaries for foreign workers, but it gives rare insight into pay scales for some of the firm’s most sought-after positions.
- We analyzed the federal data for Salesforce’s 1,294 active foreign-worker visas in 2020 to find salary ranges for the most common job titles and some of the highest paid roles, which often only had one or two hires. Roles are categorized based on information we found in job postings.
- Over half of Salesforce’s active visas are in California, where Salesforce is headquartered. It also has large offices in Washington, Texas, Indiana, New York, and Massachusetts.
Salesforce has received numerous awards for being one of the best places to work and while compensation surely factors into how employees feel about the company, Salesforce doesn’t share that information. Like many other firms, it doesn’t reveal employee salary and compensation, except for its very top executives where it’s required by federal regulations, like for CEO Marc Benioff.
However, federal data gives some insight into how much Salesforce paid its top talent. American companies have to disclose salaries when they apply for visas for current or prospective foreign workers. The Office of Foreign Labor Certification, which collects and processes those applications, publishes the salaries every year and Business Insider analyzed Salesforce’s 1,294 active foreign-worker visas to find out how much it pays workers in areas like engineering, data analytics, product management, and sales.
It’s not a comprehensive look, because the data only includes salaries for foreign workers and the roles they were hired for, but it is a rare snapshot into what Salesforce is shelling out. The data also doesn’t include bonuses or stock awards, so this is base salary versus total compensation.
We’ve included data for the most common roles, as well as some of the highest paid roles, which often only had one or two hires. Roles are categorized into business units like marketing, engineering, or security, based on information we found in job postings.
A few notes: If job titles have a salary range it means there were multiple hires with varied salaries, and if a job title only has one salary it means there was only one hire or all the hires had the same salary. If a job title has a state listed, it means the data only showed hires in that state, but if no state is listed, it means hires were across multiple states. Over half of Salesforce’s active visas are in California — the $187 billion tech giant is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. It also has large offices in Washington, Texas, Indiana, New York, and Massachusetts.
Here’s how much Salesforce paid employees in eight different departments within the company in 2020:
Sales and customer facing roles
As a company that sells customer relationship management software, Salesforce’s own customer facing roles are among some of the most important within the company. Roles like account executives and customer success managers are focused on developing relationships with customers.
This list also includes roles that focus on go-to-market strategy and building relationships with partners and companies that help resell and integrate Salesforce software. With some exceptions, most of these roles paid less than $150,000.
Account executive (New York): $80,142 to $130,893
Customer success engineer (California): $85,821 to $93,704
Customer success manager (Georgia): $57,803
High touch success manager – director (California): $194,251 to $205,650
Director, account partner (Texas): $154,565 to $159,973
Manager, AMER sales program (New York): $99,392 to $100,651
Senior analyst, sales strategy (California): $103,667 to $110,094
Partner program strategy, senior manager (California): $110,094
Manager, indirect partner strategy & operations (California): $116,792
Customer intelligence senior manager (California): $135,013
Customer success architect (Massachusetts): $107,598
Associate technical account manager (Indiana): $87,131
Marketing
Salesforce hires for marketing roles across all its departments. Product and events were two areas where the company hired foreign workers this year, including one of the highest paid positions in the data: a VP of technical product marketing who is reeling in $227,802.
VP, technical product marketing (California):$227,802
Product marketing manager (California): $88,754 to $114,442
Product marketing manager, analytics & monitoring, MuleSoft (California): $108,347 to $148,512
Sr. technical product marketing manager (California): $160,701
Senior analyst, marketing analytics (California): $113,797
Marketing manager, global government events (California): $68,432
Software engineering
Software engineers are critical to Salesforce and earn some of the company’s highest salaries. Salesforce hires engineers to work on its core business applications like Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, its platform technology, collaboration features within Salesforce’s apps, and developer tools for its own team to use.
AMTS stands for associate member of technical staff, and is often an entry level engineering or technical position. Similarly, MTS means member of technical staff, and LMTS means lead member of technical staff. These are some of the job titles that appeared most often, with some notably high paying roles.
This category also includes the highest paid hire in the data: a VP of software engineering who makes $241,696.
AMTS software engineer: $70,034 to $133,598
Software engineer: $72,134 to $168,958
MTS software engineer: $76,586 to $144,040
Software engineering, LMTS: $101,982 to $168,958
Director, software engineering (California): $194,251 to $227,802
VP, software engineering (California): $194,251 to $241,696
SVP, software engineering (California): $227,802
Engineering manager: $164,694 to $136,490
Lead software engineer: $95,680 to $168,958
Senior engineering manager: $144,123 to $205,650
Manager, software engineering (California): $122,741 to $167,939
Senior full stack engineer: $101,691 to $137,259
Associate vulnerability management software engineer (California): $118,581
Lead DevOps software engineer (Massachusetts): $118,934
Product management
Product managers also command some of the highest salaries at Salesforce, according to the data. Product managers generally manage the process of rolling out a new product, including planning and troubleshooting, as well as figuring out the strategy for how to convince customers to buy it.
Product manager: $81,806 to $194,521
Associate product manager: $74,984 to $128,440
Senior product manager: $92,498 to $194,251
Product management senior director: $168,459 to $194,251
Director, product management (California): $194,251 to $227,802
VP of product management (California): $192,608
Senior manager, revenue operations PMO (California): $110,094 to $140,254
Salesforce also had a number of hires for program management and program architect roles. Though similar to product managers, program managers take a more organization-wide approach and consider strategic initiatives that go into developing a product. A program architect has some of those responsibilities as well, but also serves as a liaison between Salesforce and its customers.
Senior technical program manager: $132,080 to $194,251
Director, technical program management, prod. sec. assurance (California): $194,251
Services Program/Project Management, Senior Manager (New Jersey): $160,326
Senior program architect: $97,781 to $168,958
Program architect: $92,414 to $160,701
Security, reliability, and technical support
Given that Salesforce makes and sells cloud software, the company puts a lot of emphasis on making sure its products are reliable and accessible for customer at all time. That’s become even more important during the coronavirus-related work-from-home mandates.
Salesforce even recently created a position called “chief availability officer,” where the main responsibility is making sure that Salesforce products are always-on for customers.
The following roles are part of Salesforce’s engineering department but focus specifically on security, reliability, and technical support across all of Salesforce’s products.
Lead infrastructure security engineer: $144,123 to $156,749
Lead cloud network security engineer (California): $139,776
Identity access management security engineer (California): $118,581
Technical support engineer (Washington): $55,744
Site reliability engineer: $87,131 to $144,040
Lead site reliability engineer (California): $156,749
Infrastructure operations engineer (Indiana): $87,131
Data, artificial intelligence, and research
Data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are key to how Salesforce continues to evolve its products. Its artificial intelligence software Einstein helps users automate mundane tasks, track trends about customers, and predict how customers will respond to various company outreach methods.
It also has a large research arm that continues to look for ways AI can be incorporated into its products, though, notably, its chief scientist Richard Socher left earlier this year.
These are some of Salesforce’s hires for data and research roles:
Data scientist: $97,906 to $174,138
Data engineer: $80,246 to $122,824
Data analyst (Texas): $96,470
Research scientist: $124,280 to $168,002
Research engineer (California): $141,586 to $168,002
Senior data science engineer (California): $141,586 to $144,040
Lead engineer, data science (California): $194,397
Data engineering senior manager – marketing analytics (California): $160,701
Senior analyst, data quality & governance (Illinois): $120,474
Sr. analyst, GTM data operations & analytics (California): $88,754 to $110,094
Business operations and finance
Finance and business operations roles also garner some high salaries at Salesforce. Overall, these roles made up a small percentage of the data, and none of the titles showed up for multiple hires, so the following are a few of hires in finance and business operations that Salesforce made this year:
Director, AppExchange business operations and programs (California): $194,251
Legal ops senior manager – business system analyst (California): $160,701
Business Operations Senior Manager (Oregon): $101,213
Senior finance analyst (California): $102,606
Finance manager (California): $143,187
Design
Salesforce’s design team plays a huge role in how customers interact and experience its products. One of its design execs, Justin Maguire, got a promotion to the C-suite earlier this year, becoming chief design officer in February. His goal is to make sure customers and partners interacting with Salesforce feel like they are dealing with one company, not separate teams.
The foreign worker data didn’t have many design hires, but here some of the ones that are included, with salary ranges for the roles that had multiple hires:
User interface/user experience lead (California): $168,958
Lead product designer, Customer 360 (California): $95,680 to $160,701
Senior product designer (California): $95,680 to $107,640
Product Designer (California): $95,680
Senior UX Designer (California): $72,030
User research, analytics (California): $140,670
