Principal Architect

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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.

Applications will be accepted until 09/25/2026.

**Please note this position can sit remotely anywhere in the United States**

The Experience:

We are seeking a Principal Software Architect who is also a hands-on, high-output software engineer. This role is for someone who has designed, built, deployed, and operated large-scale systems — and who can still personally write the software required to make complex architectures real.

This is not a traditional enterprise architect position. We need a builder-architect who can move from system design to code to deployment, with deep experience in distributed systems, cloud-native platforms, API-first/headless architecture, security, enterprise integration, and AI-native software patterns.
The ideal candidate is highly current with modern development practices and knows how to use today’s AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate delivery while maintaining strong architectural quality, security, and operational discipline.

What You'll Actually Be Doing:

• Design and build large-scale distributed software platforms.

• Write production-quality code for core services, APIs, platform components, and reference implementations.

• Architect cloud-native systems using Kubernetes, containers, networking, load balancing, observability, CI/CD, and modern deployment patterns.

• Build secure, scalable, resilient, and observable software for enterprise-grade environments.

• Design API-first and headless platform capabilities for applications, integrations, automation, and AI agents.

• Implement security patterns for identity, authorization, API access, tenant isolation, service communication, policy enforcement, and auditability.

• Design and build AI-native and agentic system capabilities, including secure tool invocation, model integration, context management, retrieval, and workflow automation.

• Evaluate and apply open-source, commercial, cloud-native, and AI-assisted development technologies.

• Debug, optimize, harden, and scale complex systems in real production environments.

You're Our Person If:

• Extensive experience designing, building, deploying, and operating large-scale distributed systems.

• Strong hands-on software engineering ability with current production coding skills.

• Experience with cloud-native platforms, SaaS products, headless/API-first systems, or enterprise platform software.

• Deep understanding of APIs, services, data flows, eventing, orchestration, caching, resilience, security, and production operations.

• Experience with Kubernetes, containers, cloud infrastructure, networking, CI/CD, observability, and deployment automation.

• Strong understanding of enterprise security and integration requirements.

• Familiarity with AI-native and agentic software patterns.

• Demonstrated ability to use modern AI-assisted development tools to increase engineering velocity.

• Ability to operate across architecture, code, infrastructure, security, deployment, and runtime behavior.

Even Better If:

You are an architect who still builds. You have delivered serious systems in production and can still write the code yourself. You understand distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, security, APIs, data flows, and enterprise software realities. You are current with modern AI-assisted engineering tools and can use them to produce high-quality systems faster without sacrificing correctness, security, or scale.

LI-Y*

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. Apply today to not only shape the future — but to redefine what’s possible — for yourself, for AI, and the world.

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.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 $257,500 - $451,700 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $310,200 - $496,400 annually.

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