Director of Software Engineering, DNS Engineering

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 CategoryEnterprise Technology & InfrastructureJob DetailsAbout SalesforceSalesforce 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.The ExperienceSalesforce is hiring a Director of Software Engineering to lead DNS Engineering, the team that owns the DDI (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) services infrastructure behind every Salesforce product. You'll lead a team of engineers responsible for authoritative and recursive DNS across Salesforce data centers and Hyperforce public cloud, self-service DNS and IPAM APIs, and DNS security, including DNSSEC and DDoS resilience. You'll set the multi-year strategy, own availability for this Tier-0 service, and lead the move to cloud-native, multi-provider DNS with automation and AI-assisted operations. The role suits a leader with 12+ years in software engineering, 5+ years leading teams, and deep experience with DNS and large-scale distributed systems.Every customer request to Salesforce starts with a DNS lookup. The DNS Engineering team owns this layer for Salesforce: the authoritative and service-discovery DNS that sits in front of every Salesforce product, in our first-party data centers and across Hyperforce on the public cloud. We also own the DDI (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) platform and the self-service APIs that engineers and automated pipelines use to manage records, zones, and IP space every day.The team's work spans large, mission-critical systems:Authoritative and recursive DNS on BIND and dnsdist, running on fleets across many data centers and serving very high query volumes with strict latency and availability targets (3 & 4 nines).Public cloud DNS on AWS Route 53 and GCP Cloud DNS, plus Kubernetes-native DNS automation (external-dns) for Hyperforce workloadsDDI platform and APIs: services that wrap commercial DDI platforms (such as Infoblox) so record and IPAM changes are safe, validated, and auditableSecurity and resilience: DNSSEC, DDoS protection, hardening against dangling records and subdomain takeover, and multi-provider failoverInfrastructure as Code and automation: Puppet, Terraform, Spinnaker, and CI/CD pipelines with staggered, datacenter-by-datacenter rollouts, plus observability through Splunk, Grafana, and ArgusThird-Party DNS vendor relations: Our DNS infrastructure uses third-party DNS vendors to manage DNS zones on misc commercial enterprise DNS platforms.As Director of Software Engineering for DNS Engineering, you'll lead the organization that keeps this layer fast, secure, and always available. You'll set its technical direction toward a cloud-native, highly automated, AI-assisted future. You'll lead tech leads, POs and senior engineers. You'll be accountable for availability and live-site health. And you'll partner with the platform, networking, security, and product teams that depend on DNS.What You'll Actually Be DoingSet strategy and own delivery. Define the multi-year vision and roadmap for Salesforce DNS and DDI, and own execution from architecture through delivery to operational excellence across first-party and public-cloud environments.Lead and grow the organization. Hire, develop, and keep a diverse, high-performing team of engineering managers and engineers. Set clear goals, manage performance, remove obstacles, and develop the next generation of technical leaders.Own availability and trust. Treat DNS as Tier-0 infrastructure. Set availability, latency, and change-safety targets (SLOs), lead the incident and problem-management process, run blameless postmortems, and drive the fixes that keep the same incident from happening twice.Modernize the platform. Lead the move toward cloud-native, multi-provider DNS on Hyperforce, including migrations, provider abstraction, Kubernetes integration, and retiring legacy systems, without disrupting customers.Automate through AI and self-service. Grow self-service DNS and IPAM APIs, policy-as-code, and automated validation. Use AI-assisted development and agentic tooling to cut toil, catch risky changes before they ship, and speed up investigations.Strengthen security posture. Champion DNSSEC, DDoS resilience, secure-by-default record management, protection against dangling records, and timely patching of third-party software, in partnership with Security.Balance the portfolio. Weigh feature delivery, live-site work, operational load, and tech-debt paydown against each other, and make clear, data-driven tradeoffs that you can explain to leadership.Partner across Salesforce. Represent DNS in architecture and planning forums. Turn the priorities of the platform, networking, Hyperforce, and product teams into a ranked roadmap with measurable outcomes, and resolve cross-team dependencies.Communicate upward and outward. Report progress, risks, and tradeoffs to senior leadership, and act as the senior escalation point for DNS during critical incidents.You're Our Person If...12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years leading engineering teams and at least 2 years managing managersA record of building and scaling diverse, high-performing infrastructure or platform teams, and delivering complex, highly available production systemsDeep understanding of DNS and core internet protocols (DNS, DNSSEC, TCP/IP, TLS, load balancing) and how they behave at scaleExperience owning Tier-0 or Tier-1 services in a 24x7x365, multi-datacenter environment, including on-call, incident management, and SLO-driven operationsHands-on background in distributed systems, Linux, and backend development (Python or Go preferred), with sound judgment on system design, reliability, and operational riskExperience with public cloud (AWS, GCP, and/or Azure), containers and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker), and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Puppet, or similar)Experience driving engineering productivity with AI-assisted development tools and automationStrong communication skills and the ability to influence senior stakeholders and peer organizationsA BS/MS in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experienceEven Better If...Experience running authoritative and recursive DNS at internet scale (BIND, dnsdist, PowerDNS, Unbound, or similar) and with managed DNS services such as AWS Route 53Experience operating DDI/IPAM platforms (such as Infoblox) and building self-service APIs on top of themLed large migrations from data centers to the cloud, or from one provider to many, for critical network infrastructureBackground in DDoS mitigation, anycast, traffic engineering, or global traffic managementExperience building agentic or ML-driven tools for detecting, investigating, and fixing operational problemsContributions to open source or to IETF/DNS community standards workUnleash Your PotentialWhen you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance andbe your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you cando 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.AccommodationsIf 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 StatementSalesforce 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: to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Salesforce will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.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.SummaryLocation: Washington - Bellevue; California - San FranciscoType: Full time