The company culture at Salesforce has changed a lot in the 4 years I was there. I felt like things really changed in late 2018/early 2019 when the company started to see quarter after quarter of success, plus the SF HQ tower opened.
Within that change, what I felt was us moving towards being overly corporate and people constantly seeming stressed out. There started to become a very formal feeling wherein coming to work meant that people we afraid to say what they thought, decision making became harder because of so many silos within the company and politics abounded.
The politics at SFDC were probably the most stressful thing for me. It was hard to feel valued when the company is constantly reorging in some area, having layoffs even after record breaking quarters and constantly pivoting. It takes a lot of dedication and energy to grind at Salesforce but it also started to become mind numbing when I realized that it would be very very hard to make it to the top & for it to be worth it.
The promotions process here is also really murky. They've tried for years to create transparency but it just isn't. Many promotions, even a title change promotion, require you to interview for the role which feels tedious and like another hoop to jump through to prove yourself.
Another major con for me was that when I changed internal roles, there was no pay increase. This meant that I didn't see a salary promotion of any kind for nearly 3 years. After some time, it starts to feel like you're just a cog in the machine. When I would try to approach financial compensation with my manager, she also would get very cagey. For a company that is raking in the dough, it sure doesn't feel like the wealth is being spread around.
This is a great place to work if you are either 1) starting your career and can climb the corporate ladder & then jump off to somewhere else or 2) are coming in at a senior manager or director level.
