Director of Engineering Interview Experience - San Francisco, California
Process
A friend referred me for a Director of Engineering role, and the interviews were arranged within a week. Over a two-week period, I had the chance to e-meet with senior members of the team I'd be taking over, some of my peers, the hiring manager himself, and his boss.
Overall, the interview process was smooth, efficient, and well thought out. The hiring manager called to inform me they would like to make an offer.
A recruiter became involved at this stage, and that is when things started unraveling a bit. This recruiter initially seemed genuine, but on the second conversation, she asked about my current compensation (which is illegal in California) and presented a lowball offer that was below my current compensation. Eventually, they did bump it up a bit, but it was still less than my current compensation.
Nevertheless, I would have accepted the offer except for the manner in which the process was handled overall. If Salesforce was basing their offers on current compensation, my impression of them as an employee-friendly place started to crumble, and I decided to politely decline the offer.
Possible reasons for this approach:
- The recruiter felt she wouldn't gain anything from closing this offer (due to me being an internal referral) and decided to focus on other candidates she had sourced.
- Title inflation is common at Salesforce. While the position was for a Director of Engineering, the compensation and impact were significantly less, more in line with an L4 engineer at Google/Facebook.
Advice to Salesforce:
It is illegal to solicit a candidate's current compensation and make an offer entirely based on that. In rare situations (where expected compensation is significantly higher than the top of your band), it might be acceptable to know if the candidate has competing offers, but current pay should not be a factor at all. Please consider addressing this to protect your reputation as an employee-friendly company.
Advice to candidates:
Title inflation, especially in the middle of the leadership ladder, is quite common at Salesforce. If you are interviewing for a Director, Senior Director, or VP role, keep in mind that the offer might equate to something substantially less than at competing firms.
Questions
Mostly on leadership and management.
Typical questions around:
- Hiring
- Team building
- Team motivation
- Conflict resolution
- Prioritization
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 3 interview experiences for the Salesforce Director of Engineering role in San Francisco, California.
Success Rate
Salesforce's interview process for their Director of Engineering roles in San Francisco, California is incredibly easy as the vast majority of engineers get an offer after going through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Salesforce's Director of Engineering interview process in San Francisco, California.
Salesforce Work Experiences
- 4.0Friendly working environmentDirector of Engineering • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesMarch 6, 2024Pros: You have opportunities to work on interesting projects if you are in this relatively new organization. Colleagues are friendly.Cons: More hierarchy than needed. Career growth is limited. Lack of diversity in some organizations.
- 1.0toxic work environmentDirector of Engineering • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesNovember 13, 2008Pros: Software as a Service (SaaS) is a hot space. The process is best of breed. The technology is excellent, except for the persistence layer. The people are very good. The work is interesting, and the location and offices are fantastic.Cons: Incredibly political; upper management shouts a lot; most managers are terrified to even speak. Promotions are based on who you know and how loud you shout, rather than how talented you are. Very toxic working environment. Tremendous focus on the sales automation side, with a bizarre model of hiring more and more salespeople to flog the product, guaranteeing individual salespeople's revenue will be lower. They then fire the lower 10% of all salespeople every three months, so turnover is high and morale is in the toilet. 4000 employees but only 150 engineers; very sales heavy.
- 5.0Extremely passionate employees and managementDirector of Engineering • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesJanuary 15, 2009Pros: Aggressive, smart, well-organized R&D department. Clear technology-wide prioritization of projects (at least with the recent reorg). Corporate goals are also extremely clear. All employees are required to map their yearly goals to their manager, who maps to their manager, all the way up to the CEO. The Foundation makes you feel like you're not just working for another greedy tech company. Extreme passion throughout the entire company about what we do. The CEO is a great leader and a brilliant marketer. Downtown SF location.Cons: Long commute if you don't live in SF. Can be really stressful because of the intensity and passion of everyone working there.
Salesforce Interview Questions
