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About This Role
*To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts.*
Job Category
Software Engineering
Job Details
About Salesforce
Salesforce is the \#1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.
Ready to level\-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You’re in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.
About the Role
We are seeking a highly skilled Machine Learning Engineer to design, build, and productionalize models that drive customer growth, engagement and retention. This role will focus specifically on attrition prediction and mitigation \- identifying customers at risk of churn and surfacing proactive interventions that improve customer satisfaction and lifetime value.
You will work closely with data scientists, software engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders to build scalable ML systems that power attrition predictions, risk and mitigation explanations and next best action recommendations.
What You’ll Do
Key Responsibilities:
- Design predictive models for user and customer attrition using supervised, unsupervised, deep learning and generative techniques.
- Design scalable data pipelines for feature generation from both structured and unstructured sources of product adoption, sales activity, and customer engagement data (e.g. product telemetry, usage logs, CRM, sales activity, etc.)
- Build and maintain production\-grade ML services , integrating models into APIs or decision systems that support real\-time and batch use cases.
- Continuously monitor and improve model performance through drift detection, retraining automation and impact measurement.
- Collaborate with product and engineering teams to integrate models into production systems and agentic experiences, ensuring scalability, robustness and efficiency.
- Mentor junior engineers and data scientists and provide technical leadership in model architecture, experimentation, and deployment best practices.
What We’re Looking For
- Demonstrated ability to take models from research to production
- Strong software engineering proficiency in Python and data manipulation skills like SQL.
- Experience using third\-party and in\-house Machine learning tools and infrastructure to develop reusable, high\-performing Machine Learning systems, enable fast model development, low\-latency serving and ease of model quality upkeep.
- Exposure to architectural patterns of a large, high\-scale software application (e.g. well\-designed APIs, high volume data pipelines, efficient algorithms, etc.)
- Familiarity with ML libraries such as scikit\-learn, XGBoost, Pytorch, or TensorFlow
- Experience with feature engineering on big data (Spark, Trino, Snowflake, etc.)
- Experience with ML lifecycle management tools (ML Flow, Airflow, Kubeflow or equivalents).
- Experience with containerization technologies (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
- Strong grasp of model evaluation, drift monitoring and explainability best practices.
- Experience with Agile development methodology, Test\-Driven Development, incremental delivery, and CI/CD
- Experience owning and operating services throughout the software development lifecycle including design, development, release and maintenance.
- Experience communicating technical vision, mentoring junior engineers and managing projects.
- Experience developing and evaluating AI Agents that integrate with traditional ML models, (e.g. combining predictive scoring systems with generative or agentic workflows to automate customer engagement flows and recommendations.
Preferred Qualifications (Bonus Points):
- Familiarity with retention modeling or next best action recommendation systems.
- Experience developing or contributing to shared ML frameworks or internal ML Ops platforms.
- Experience with Feature Stores like Feast
Unleash Your Potential
When you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and *be your best* , and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can *do your best* . Together, we’ll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love. Apply today to not only shape the future — but to redefine what’s possible — for yourself, for AI, and the world.
Accommodations
If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this Accommodations Request Form .
Please note that Salesforce uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help our recruiters assess and evaluate candidates’ resumes and qualifications throughout the recruiting process. Humans will always make any candidate selection and hiring decisions. Please see our Candidate Privacy Statement for more information about how we use your personal data and your rights, including with regard to use of AI tools and opt out options.
Posting Statement
Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non\-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. What does that mean exactly? It means that at Salesforce, we believe in equality for all. And we believe we can lead the path to equality in part by creating a workplace that’s inclusive, and free from discrimination. Know your rights: workplace discrimination is illegal. Any employee or potential employee will be assessed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications – without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, transgender status, age, disability, veteran or marital status, political viewpoint, or other classifications protected by law. This policy applies to current and prospective employees, no matter where they are in their Salesforce employment journey. It also applies to recruiting, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, assessment of job performance, discipline, termination, and everything in between. Recruiting, hiring, and promotion decisions at Salesforce are fair and based on merit. The same goes for compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, reduction in workforce, recall, training, and education.
In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job\-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.
At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions.\&\#xa;\&\#xa;The typical base salary range for this position is $172,500 \- $260,100 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $207,800 \- $285,800 annually.\&\#xa;\&\#xa;The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.
Salary Context
This $172K-$285K range is above the 75th percentile for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $100K across 15465 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 26,159 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 91% of the market. At Salesforce, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $166,983 based on 13,781 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $131,300. This role's midpoint ($229K) sits 37% above the category median. Disclosed range: $172K to $285K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Architect ($292,900). By seniority level: Entry: $76,880; Mid: $131,300; Senior: $227,400; Director: $244,288; VP: $234,620.
Salesforce AI Hiring
Salesforce has 19 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Architect, AI Software Engineer. Positions span San Francisco, CA, US, New York, NY, US, Chicago, IL, US. Compensation range: $155K - $451K.
Location Context
AI roles in New York pay a median of $200,000 across 1,670 tracked positions. That's 9% above the national median.
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 26,159 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 2,416 entry-level, 16,247 mid-level, 5,153 senior, and 2,343 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 7% of the market (1,863 positions). The remaining 24,200 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 28 roles); AI Architect ($292,900 median, 108 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 19 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 26,159 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (23,752), AI Software Engineer (598), AI Product Manager (594). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (2,416) are outnumbered by mid-level (16,247) and senior (5,153) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 2,343 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 7% of all AI roles (1,863 positions), with 24,200 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $184,000. Top-quartile roles start at $244,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $309,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $122,200. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Rag (16,749 postings), Aws (8,932 postings), Rust (7,660 postings), Python (3,815 postings), Azure (2,678 postings), Gcp (2,247 postings), Prompt Engineering (1,469 postings), Openai (1,269 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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