This has several results. One may be the desired financial result, the other is the total gutting of the engineering culture. When you do this all raises and promotions are essentially on hold as well. Anyone who wants upward career mobility, and can, will leave. Leaving only the least motivated and least "desirable" employees.
Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
291–300 of 409 posts
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#292[deleted]
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#293I have experience working with the Salesforce platform via the “Power of Us” program where nonprofits can get a discount and some free user licenses. It is interesting how much the platform has changed from the perspective of an “Admin”. I have frequently heard from others that compared to the past, it is much more difficult to for a staffer to implement it, especially if it’s not their primary role or they don’t hav…
What do you mean failed implementations? Like, they ask for a refund?
I think Salesforce’s customers typically sign an annual contract so not sure how the refunding thing works. Maybe they can ask Salesforce to do an “org swap” where they essentially start from scratch. (Some configuration options in the Salesforce platform are irreversible or difficult to undo. Example: Enabling “person accounts” in the data model.)
What I meant by failed implementation is when the team that’s in charge of setting it up is struggling to get their staff or salespeople to use it as part of their job responsibilities.
The reason why this is challenging is that the implementation team really needs to understand the teams that are being asked to use Salesforce as part of their job while at the same time knowing the intricacies of the platform. Plus, there’s often a lot of integration of systems and data migration that would likely need to happen in a very organized fashion.
It is kind of similar to a story I have seen here on HN about Hertz (car rental company) having sued Accenture for a botched project that was supposed to help them improve the business’s website and to create mobile apps.
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#294Current 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…
What hiding freeze ?
I’ve seen SFDC hiring managers advertising positions on LinkedIn hiring SWEs as recently as last month
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
Salespeople are typically compensated based on commissions. At least the well compensated ones are. Automation can make things easier and streamline the sales process, but because the sales rep is paid a percentage of the GP of a sale, automation doesn't really their take.
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mind if I ask what AI tooling you are using and how it's increased your productivity?
I just use chat gpt. I use it in all manners — questions about the business domain I am in, front end and backend coding questions, as well as istio configurations. I am well versed in all three areas, but obviously I can’t remember all the syntax, and don’t have time to trial and error the changes, and ai reduces that loop. I don’t use it to generate massive blocks of code, I use it mostly to demonstrate the princip…
Gotcha. Thanks.
Yes, that's about how I've used it. I found that it is good at snippets, mid-complexity queries, etc., but not so much full applications.
Still, I keep hearing people claim that devs are getting ~60% productivity increases. And, I'm trying to figure out if this is supposedly through tools like Copilot. Also wondering whether AI has really had a significant impact on no code and low code tools.
Just trying to see through the hype at what devs are really getting out of AI in its current state.
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#297So if you are an software engineer at Salesforce can you get anything you want by threatening to leave? Or are they still trying to push people out and reduce headcount?
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
They apparently paid $20 million for the use of Einstein's image: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-27/salesforc...
TIL that the likeness of Einstein was licensed. Proceeds go to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is fitting considering his support and investment: "Albert Einstein is one of the founders of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. To him, the university represented a combination of the commitment to his Jewish identity and his belief in the universal values of the pursuit of truth and respect for every human bein…
I had no idea. That his likeness is still protected IP so long after he died really drives home just how utterly broken the current IP law is.
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, the toxic env, I'm too familiar with it. Quarterly layoffs, perks gone, more RTO, but execs can still travel around lavishly.
FAANG used to over-employ not just due to ZIRP, but also in the fear that their engineers would build competing products. These companies enjoy healthy margins. Unemployed engineers can duplicate the core functionality and offer it for less.
This was always a myth and never a real thing, except for at the highest, bleeding edge talent levels.
Especially for Enterprise Saas companies like Salesforce/Microsoft/Oracle/etc who know full well that their real competency isn’t actually the software…it’s distribution. Employees aren’t choosing to use those products, they get forced into them by management/IT or literal monopoly.
Sales is everything in B2B software and always has been. Product-led growth in B2B has always been fantasy erotic-fiction outside of chat/notes apps.
Re: Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The productivity gains of 30% are probably overstated it maybe not, LLMs deliver clear value in coding tasks, but the thing is that competitors also will have gains, deliver more features, fixes and products.
I am yet to have Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook suggest that they’ve achieved 30% productivity gains from AI. Those are companies at the forefront of AI investment and if they haven’t achieved that kind of increased engineering productivity, I am ready to bet money on the fact that any other company claiming so hasn’t either. Even if 30% productivity gains are true, they are probably not because of AI. They co…
The Google CEO did say that > 25% of Google's internal new code is written using AI. But the claim seems a bit dubious...