Principal Operations Engineer

About the Role Salesforce's Digital Enterprise Technology organization is building something new: a modern, engineering-first operations function designed to move the entire organization from reactive, manual processes to automated, intelligent, and proactive operations at scale. As a Principal Operations Engineer focused on Operational Excellence, you'll be one of the founding technical leaders of this team — defining how DET detects, responds to, and prevents issues while eliminating toil and raising the reliability bar for critical, customer-facing systems. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role for someone who wants to shape not just what gets built, but how an organization operates. What You’ll Be Doing Automation & Operational Engineering Lead the design and implementation of automation-first operations, eliminating manual workflows across incident management, alerting, escalation, runbooks, and day-to-day operational processes Build and scale alert-to-incident automation pipelines to accelerate detection and response times Identify and prioritize high-impact toil reduction opportunities across the ecosystem Drive adoption of self-healing systems and automated remediation patterns Provide Tier 2+ advanced application support for complex production issues and lead deep-dive investigations into system failures Drive a culture of automation-first thinking, ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement Incident, Reliability & Operational Excellence Lead the evolution from reactive incident response to proactive reliability engineering, improving MTTD, MTTR, and the percentage of incidents detected automatically Serve as a key technical leader in incident management, escalation strategy, and post-incident analysis Establish and enforce SLI, SLA, and SLO frameworks across critical Tier‑1 services Drive deep understanding of system dependencies and failure modes Customer-Centric Operations Architect operational strategies with a focus on customer intent, experience, and outcomes Identify and prioritize critical user journeys, ensuring they are observable, reliable, and performant Align operational priorities with business impact Operational Strategy & Roadmap Partner with stakeholders to define and execute quarterly and annual operational roadmaps (OKRs) Translate business needs into scalable operational capabilities, balancing reliability, speed, and cost efficiency What We’re Looking For Required Qualifications 12+ years of experience in engineering, operations engineering, SRE, or related roles Proven track record of automating complex operational workflows and improving reliability and operational maturity at scale Deep expertise in incident management systems, observability (metrics, logging, tracing), and distributed systems and microservices Strong experience with automation frameworks, scripting, Infrastructure as Code, and modern DevOps practices Experience operating high-availability, customer-facing systems in enterprise environments Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence senior engineering leaders and drive outcomes across teams without formal authority A related technical degree required. Preferred Qualifications Experience building self-service or platform-based operational tooling Background in automation-driven operations or platform engineering Experience leading large-scale incident management transformations Familiarity with AI/ML-driven operations (AIOps) Experience in SaaS/PaaS enterprise environments Salesforce ecosystem experience (Apex, LWC, APIs, etc.) What’s in It for You This is a rare opportunity to build a modern operations discipline from the ground up — not maintain something inherited — with full visibility into engineering leadership and a real mandate to drive change. You'll work alongside strong engineering, SRE, and platform teams on problems that directly affect Salesforce's internal products and customer-facing systems. If you want to do the most technically interesting work of your career while shaping how an entire organization runs, this role is it. Accommodations If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via the Accommodations Request Form. Posting Statement Salesforce is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a policy of non-discrimination with all employees and applicants for employment. 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: 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 $197,300 - $313,700 annually. In select cities within the San Francisco and New York City metropolitan area, the base salary range for this role is $237,700 - $344,700 annually. The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable. #J-18808-Ljbffr