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Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

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Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#81

Post by bee_rider »

majormajor wrote: post #54
nick__m wrote: post #7

《 And then, we will have less support engineers next year because we have an agentic layer. We will have more salespeople next year because we really need to explain to people exactly the value that we can achieve with AI. So, we will probably add another 1,000 to 2,000 salespeople in the short term.” 》 I guess they are building a saleforce at the expense of everything else !

Somehow their "agent" AI can't do sales? Can't run email/call scripts? Can't track things in their own CRM? Huh. So they are telling customers that they'll make their work more AI driven while staffing up their own human sales?

Do their customers value sales more than engineering? It seems like a self-consistent pitch if so.

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#82

Post by alfalfasprout »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #48

I was at Salesforce for 4 years, and during those years the company made a massive deal about: 2020: the first AI craze, introducing “Einstein” as their name for their analytics platform, and officially changing the corporate vision to being the “No. 1 AI CRM company”. 2021: Now it’s all about “Customer 360”, i.e. account-based marketing, i.e. what basically everyone else does without such a memeable name. You wouldn…

yep salesforce has quite the track record of making bold marketing claims until the next hot thing shows up.

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#84

Post by hatefulmoron »

brandon272 wrote: post #63
mullingitover wrote: post #25

If I were on the Salesforce BoD I wouldn't be impressed. Let's see Benioff put his money where his mouth is, replace some C-suite seats with AI agents. Those are the really expensive salaries, and if AI is as smart as he claims it's downright reckless and negligent not to do this.

That is a point that seems to get lost in the hype (or fear) of AI replacing software engineers. If we take at face value that AI can “replace” a software engineer, it can most certainly replace most of the managers and executives above that role.

Right. When many jobs could be reduced to interacting with a keyboard and a camera/microphone connected to a computer, I would suggest that software engineers are not at the front of the queue to be automated away. In the AI vision we're definitely there, but we have lots of company.

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#86

Post by bee_rider »

mullingitover wrote: post #80
dasil003 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of this announcement is to boost sales, not to save costs. He's selling AI hype. The only thing that matters if customers are buying the hype, not the reality of AI's limitations which I'm sure the board is well aware of.

> He's selling AI hype AI hype is exactly what I'm talking about. I imagine if you demonstrate that you can have AI agents as viciously competitive COOs, CFOs, and CTOs, who never need time off, never sleep, it would be something that would set Wall Street on fire.

That seems like it might actually work though.

A company as a something like a collection of guilds coordinated by AI facilitators would be really fascinating.

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#87

Post by paxys »

nick__m wrote: post #7

《 And then, we will have less support engineers next year because we have an agentic layer. We will have more salespeople next year because we really need to explain to people exactly the value that we can achieve with AI. So, we will probably add another 1,000 to 2,000 salespeople in the short term.” 》 I guess they are building a saleforce at the expense of everything else !

"Here's an AI Agentforce that can do all your sales for you!"

"We have to hire thousands of salespeople to sell this AI agent"

Something doesn't compute

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#88

Post by ethbr1 »

risyachka wrote: post #60
bb611 wrote: post #33

Current SFDC software engineer - this is just cover for a widespread engineering hiring freeze since the layoffs in January 2023. There's a ton of pressure to control costs after the near shareholder revolt that caused the layoffs. The public nature of the announcement is certainly marketing for our AI offerings as well, but at this point I think most engineers are just worried there will be additional layoffs, in th…

Looks like it. The only other explanation is they just stopped investing in other products and focused on Agents, thus no need for loads more of engineering. No way in the world they got 30% gains. 5 maybe realistically

Their ultimate agent product strategy feels like reducing cost of sales... by automating salespeople.

I have doubts that will ever happen, but who knows?

Sales folks are highly-compensated, so even making a few of them redundant (or making existing salespeople more efficient) would be a big win for companies (Salesforce's customers).

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#89

Post by mrayycombi »

risyachka wrote: post #60
bb611 wrote: post #33

Current SFDC software engineer - this is just cover for a widespread engineering hiring freeze since the layoffs in January 2023. There's a ton of pressure to control costs after the near shareholder revolt that caused the layoffs. The public nature of the announcement is certainly marketing for our AI offerings as well, but at this point I think most engineers are just worried there will be additional layoffs, in th…

Looks like it. The only other explanation is they just stopped investing in other products and focused on Agents, thus no need for loads more of engineering. No way in the world they got 30% gains. 5 maybe realistically

Indeed, it's marketing slop as a pretense for a hiring freeze.

Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff

#90

Post by unclebucknasty »

pylua wrote: post #35

What exactly have they achieved with ai? What incredible progress has been made ? Does anyone know, I am genuinely curious. AI has increased my productivity greatly, but it is a long way away from replacing my Job. Though maybe I am biased.

Mind if I ask what AI tooling you are using and how it's increased your productivity?
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