Principal Architect (AI Labs)

Join AI Labs as a Principal Architect, where you will lead technical and AI diligence for potential acquisitions and strategic investments. You will critically evaluate architecture, models, data strategy, infrastructure, security, scalability, technical differentiation, and technical debt. You will also assess build-vs-buy questions, partner directly with founders and engineering leaders, and identify material technical risks and opportunities. Additionally, you will serve as a senior technical advisor across the AI Labs portfolio.

Ability to rapidly understand unfamiliar technical stacks and distinguish true technical differentiation from implementation detail

USD 197,300 - 401,400

About Salesforce

Deep understanding of modern AI architectures, models, training/post-training and inference, data, evaluation, infrastructure, production systems, and how technical choices shape product outcomes

Responsibilities

• Lead technical and AI diligence for potential acquisitions and strategic investments, critically evaluating architecture, models, data strategy, infrastructure, security, scalability, and technical differentiation.
• Partner directly with founders, CTOs, and engineering leaders during diligence, identifying material technical risks and opportunities and translating them into clear recommendations for AI Labs leadership.
• Serve as a senior technical advisor across the AI Labs portfolio, identifying opportunities for portfolio companies to adopt shared AI technologies, evaluation frameworks, infrastructure, standards, and services.

Requirements

• Experience with technical diligence, DeepTech investing, acquisitions, or startup evaluation is nice to have. (Having shipped differentiated AI/ML products matters more.)
• Strong technical judgment combined with deep product taste and pragmatic business thinking
• Experience working with startup/founder-led engineering teams
• Principal/Distinguished-level engineering or architecture experience in AI (both basic and applied), ML, and production-scale AI products