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Job Category
Product
Job Details
The Experience:
Salesforce is seeking a visionary Senior Director of Product Strategy to join our Product Strategy & Innovation team. This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of product vision, market intelligence, and technical architecture — helping define not just what Salesforce builds next, but why and how.
Reporting directly to the SVP of Product Strategy, you will serve as a key architect of our forward-looking product innovation agenda. You will lead and grow a team of product strategists charged with identifying emerging white spaces, evaluating build-buy-partner options, and translating complex technical and market dynamics into clear, executable product strategies.
This role goes well beyond traditional corporate strategy. We are not looking for someone who reacts to the latest headlines or incoming M&A signals. We are building a team that gets ahead of trends — a group that proactively surfaces what Salesforce might be missing, stress-tests assumptions, and shapes the decisions that will define our product platform for the next decade.
From guiding the productization of emerging internal capabilities — spanning trust infrastructure, workflow automation, and agentic AI architectures — to framing investment theses around high-growth sectors like supply chain agentification, developer tooling, and AI-native systems of record, you will ensure Salesforce is building the right things, at the right time, with the right model.
What You'll Actually Be Doing:
- Lead product strategy for forward-looking innovation, whitespace identification, and productization planning across Salesforce's AI and platform portfolio.
- Drive product strategy for emerging offerings moving from internal capability to standalone or platform-integrated product — including trust infrastructure, workflow automation, agentic AI systems, and data platforms.
- Own and evolve a strategic framework for evaluating build-buy-partner decisions, including how and when to integrate acquired technologies into the core Salesforce platform versus taking them to market independently.
- Proactively identify and assess game-changing market shifts — including the agentic coding revolution, AI-native application architectures, supply chain automation, and open source commercialization trends — and translate these into actionable investment recommendations.
- Partner closely with the SVP to define 'what are we missing' across the product portfolio, filling gaps in strategic coverage that go beyond what reactive competitive intelligence can provide.
- Synthesize inputs from engineering, product management, research, M&A, and external sources to develop clear, evidence-based points of view on where Salesforce should place strategic bets.
- Perform quantitative and competitive analytics to size market opportunities, assess competitive positioning, and support investment recommendations with data-driven evidence.
- Partner with regional leadership to expand Salesforce's product strategy footprint into European markets, accounting for local regulatory requirements, competitive dynamics, and go-to-market nuances.
- Evaluate productization models — open source, platform-bundled, standalone SaaS, API-first — and build decision-making frameworks that account for monetization, competitive dynamics, and developer adoption.
- Monitor venture investment trends, startup ecosystem signals, and technical research to stay ahead of emerging paradigms before they become conventional wisdom.
- Present strategic recommendations and options to the SVP and cross-functional executives in a clear, structured, and data-supported manner.
- Build and mentor a high-performing strategy team, establishing processes for ongoing horizon scanning, opportunity assessment, and strategic synthesis.
You're Our Person If:
- 12+ years of experience spanning product management, product strategy, technology strategy, or innovation roles — preferably at an enterprise software or cloud platform company.
- Demonstrated ability to lead and develop teams of 3 or more strategists, researchers, or product managers in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.
- Deep working knowledge of AI and machine learning architectures, including agentic systems, LLM-based applications, and AI integration patterns within enterprise platforms.
- Strong understanding of systems of record, data platforms, and enterprise application architectures, including how AI layers are introduced into or layered atop traditional SaaS infrastructure.
- Fluency in evaluating productization strategies, including trade-offs between open source, proprietary, platform-native, and standalone go-to-market models.
- Experience participating in or supporting M&A strategy, including acquisition thesis development, integration planning, or build-buy-partner evaluation.
- Ability to structure and communicate complex, multi-variable strategic analyses for senior executive audiences — in writing, in presentations, and in live discussions.
- Comfort operating in contexts where the problem is not fully defined and the path forward requires both intellectual rigor and creative hypothesis generation.
Even Better If:
- Experience in product strategy or innovation roles at an AI-first company, an enterprise platform vendor, or a technology-focused management consulting firm.
- Familiarity with agentic coding tools, developer platform ecosystems, and the competitive landscape around AI-assisted software development.
- Knowledge of supply chain, operations, or vertical AI automation and process agentification at enterprise scale.
- Track record of developing original investment or product theses — not simply synthesizing others' frameworks, but originating new points of view.
- Exposure to venture capital, corporate development, or startup ecosystem dynamics, with the ability to translate investment signals into product strategy implications.
- Builder's mindset: You are energized by creating new things — teams, frameworks, markets — not just running existing processes.
- Experience working on both offensive (new market entry, new product launch) and defensive (competitive response, retention of strategic position) product strategies.
- MBA, MS, or equivalent advanced degree in a relevant discipline is a plus; demonstrated outcomes matter more than credentials
LI-Y*
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 $218,400 - $365,200 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $263,200 - $401,400 annually.
The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.
