# Key Findings

## Salesforce's US Hiring: Few Build the Agents, Many Sell and Deploy Them

Among the three named categories, R&D is the only one whose share did not rise: it stayed at 10%–14% across all seven counts, while Agentforce-titled postings doubled and the customer-delivery share climbed 17.5% → 32.0%.

- **10.4%** Product R&D share of open roles
- **Sales 34.7%**, customer delivery 32.0%, other 22.8%  
- **6.4×** Sales + delivery ÷ product R&D
- **10/213** R&D roles among Agentforce-titled postings
- **3.9%** R&D share in the other six cities

_Sales and delivery make up two-thirds of hiring; R&D is one-tenth_

Of the 1,713 open roles on August 30 (8/30): R&D 10.4%, sales 34.7%, customer delivery 32.0%; R&D was the smallest of the three named categories in all seven counts.

_Sales and delivery make up two-thirds of hiring; R&D is one-tenth_

## Hiring Focus

On August 30 (8/30), of Salesforce's 1,713 open US roles:
- 179 were product R&D (10.4%)
- 595 sales (34.7%)
- 549 customer delivery and technical services (32.0%)
- 390 other (22.8%)  
Product R&D was the smallest of the three named categories in all seven counts, and sales plus delivery totaled 3.4–6.4 times R&D. Sales covers account executives, pre-sales solution engineers, and sales management; customer delivery and technical services covers the implementation architects, forward-deployed teams, customer success, and technical support that put the product into customer environments; other covers corporate functions such as finance, legal, HR, marketing, and internal IT.

**Product R&D**: Software, platform, machine-learning, and product-management roles that build the product  
**Sales**: Account executives, pre-sales solution engineers, sales management  
**Customer Delivery & Technical Services**: Implementation architecture, forward deployment, customer success, technical support  
**Other**: Corporate functions such as finance, legal, HR, marketing, and internal IT

### Composition of the four categories

Sales and customer-delivery roles total 1,144, 6.4 times the number of product R&D roles.

- Sales + customer delivery 66.8%, or 6.4× R&D  
- Product R&D 179 jobs  
- Sales 595 jobs  
- Customer Delivery & Technical Services 549 jobs  
- Other 390 jobs

### How the four categories' shares changed

R&D stayed at 10%–14% throughout; customer delivery rose 17.5% → 32.0%, up in five of six intervals — the largest gain of the four.

### Sales + delivery as a multiple of product R&D

Sales plus delivery was at least 3.4× R&D in every count, reaching 6.4× on August 30 (8/30).

## The Agentforce Lens

### Agentforce hiring is hot in sales and deployment; engineering roles fell to 10

Open roles whose titles contain "Agentforce" or "Agentic" rose 101 (June 1 (6/1)) → 213 (August 30 (8/30)), i.e. 6.1% → 12.4% of all open roles. Of the 213 on August 30 (8/30), 92 were sales, 99 customer delivery and technical services, 10 product R&D, and 12 other; sales plus delivery made up 89.7%. On June 1 (6/1), R&D was still 31.7% (32 roles); on August 30 (8/30) it was 4.7%.

### How the 213 Agentforce-titled roles break down

- Customer Delivery & Technical Services: 99 _46.5%_
- Sales: 92 _43.2%_
- Other: 12 _5.6%_
- Product R&D: 10 _4.7%_

### Agentforce-titled postings over time

The total rose 101 → 213: sales 15 → 92, customer delivery 38 → 99, product R&D down 32 → 10; the remainder is other, 12 on August 30 (8/30).

## The R&D Map

### The R&D map has only two dots: San Francisco and Seattle

Core cities are the eight with the most open roles on August 30 (8/30). Among them, San Francisco (31.3%) and Seattle (15.4%) have the highest R&D shares: 87 R&D roles out of 347 (25.1%). The other six — Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Indianapolis, Austin, and Washington DC — have only 29 R&D roles out of 746 (3.9%). The two cities hold 20.3% of US roles but 48.6% of R&D; the six hold 43.6% of roles, 46.6% of sales, and 45.2% of delivery, but only 16.2% of R&D.

### R&D share and category mix by core city

San Francisco is 31% R&D and Seattle 15%; the other six cities are all under 8%, and their roles are mostly sales and customer delivery.

### Role mix: two cities, six cities, and the US

San Francisco + Seattle are 25.1% R&D, the other six cities 3.9%, the US 10.4%; 70.4% of the six cities' roles are sales and customer delivery.

## Job Titles

### The two most-posted US roles: one sells Agentforce, one deploys it

On August 30 (8/30), the most-posted titles were Agentic Operations Consultant (54, customer delivery) and Strategic Sales Director, Agentforce Operations (51, sales), together 6.1% of all open roles. Of the ten most-posted titles, 8 are customer delivery and 2 are sales; none is R&D.

### The ten most-posted job titles

| Title                                        | Roles |  
|----------------------------------------------|-------|  
| Agentic Operations Consultant                 | 54    |  
| Strategic Sales Director, Agentforce Operations | 51    |  
| Solutions Architect, Salesforce Migrations   | 31    |  
| Deployment Strategist                         | 28    |  
| Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)              | 28    |  
| Portfolio Leader                              | 28    |  
| Migration Delivery, Deployment Strategist     | 19    |  
| Partner Delivery Advisor                      | 19    |  
| Solution Engineer (Pre-Sales)                | 18    |  
| Principal, Technical Architect                | 17    |

## Judgments and Implications

### In its public hiring, Salesforce is building the team that distributes and lands Agentforce

For each core finding: the judgment it supports and what it implies for where to put resources.

### Hiring Focus

**Judgment:** Public hiring centers on sales and customer delivery; R&D is the smallest of the three named categories.

**Implication:** In the same period that Agentforce passed $1B in annualized revenue and a third layoff round skewed toward engineering, Salesforce's public hiring focused on selling the product and installing it in customer environments; engineering roles were one-tenth.

### Agentforce Lens

**Judgment:** All of the growth in Agentforce-related roles landed in sales and delivery, while the R&D component shrank.

**Implication:** The market sees Agentforce's revenue; public hiring shows its distribution and landing teams. Agentforce-titled R&D roles did not grow with it.

### R&D Map

**Judgment:** R&D hiring concentrates in two cities; the other large cities hire almost only for sales and delivery.

**Implication:** San Francisco and Seattle, where the August (8) state-filed layoffs fell, are also where Salesforce is still hiring R&D; hiring in the other large cities is almost entirely customer-facing. Competition for R&D talent is concentrated in two cities, while competition for sales and delivery talent spans the country.

## Questions this report answers

- What does this report cover? All valid public job postings of Salesforce's US main entity, June 1 (6/1) – August 30 (8/30), 2026, counted every two weeks (1,713 on August 30 (8/30)), classified by title into product R&D, sales, customer delivery and technical services, and other; Agentforce-titled roles and the eight largest hiring cities are analyzed separately. The data reflects public hiring demand, not hires or headcount.

- What is the report's core judgment? Public hiring centers on sales and customer delivery: on August 30 (8/30), R&D was only 10.4% and sales plus delivery was 6.4× R&D; Agentforce-titled roles rose 101 → 213 in three months, with the increase in sales and delivery; R&D hiring concentrates in San Francisco and Seattle, while the other six cities are just 3.9% R&D.