Senior Director, Architecture & Innovation - CBS

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 Sales 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. THE OPPORTUNITY The next era of enterprise technology will not be won by simply knowing the platform. It will be won by helping customers make the right architectural choices as AI reshapes how data, applications, experiences, security, and work come together. We are looking for a Senior Director of Architecture & Innovation to lead a multi-layered organization of Core Technical and Enterprise Architecture leaders and highly experienced talent across CBS. This is not a traditional architecture leadership role. We need a leader who can see around corners, create a point of view, mobilize teams quickly, and translate emerging technology into clear choices for customers and our field, someone who can move comfortably between an executive customer conversation, a deep architectural debate, a strategy session with Sales and Solutions leadership, and an executive update on what we are learning across the business. You will lead teams responsible for helping customers understand how to govern AI responsibly, activate the full Salesforce platform, prepare data and architecture for production, and reimagine experiences as new technologies emerge. Just as importantly, you will create leverage. The best work of the organization should not remain inside a single account or team. You will turn what we learn into strong points of view, architectural patterns, field guidance, and repeatable approaches that make the entire CBS organization better.   WHAT YOU'LL DO Lead and Scale an Exceptional Architecture Organization Lead and develop a multi-layered organization of frontline leaders and senior architects across a diverse set of architecture and innovation disciplines Create a high bar for technical excellence, customer impact, pace, accountability, and executive presence Build an environment where teams are encouraged to challenge assumptions, experiment thoughtfully, and bring forward new ideas before they are asked Develop strong leaders who can independently run their businesses while operating as one integrated architecture organization Attract, grow, and retain exceptional architecture talent while creating clear opportunities for career development and succession Create the Architectural Point of View Establish clear, proactive perspectives on the architectural questions our customers are facing across AI, data, security, governance, integration, platform strategy, emerging technology, and digital experiences Anticipate where customer architecture is heading and ensure CBS is prepared to lead those conversations, not react to them Move quickly from signal to insight to action, without waiting for perfect information when the field needs direction Translate complex technical shifts into simple frameworks, reference architectures, patterns, and recommendations that customers and account teams can act on Ensure the organization consistently connects architectural decisions to business outcomes, platform strategy, and the customer's path to production Lead the Most Important Customer Conversations Serve as a trusted architecture executive for strategic customers navigating complex transformation decisions Lead conversations that help CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, CISOs, and other technology leaders understand choices, tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities Elevate conversations beyond products and features to how the customer's technology landscape must evolve for an agentic enterprise Create confidence when the answer is complex, multiple technologies are involved, or the path forward is not yet obvious Step into critical opportunities and escalations with urgency, clarity, and strong executive judgment Lead and participate in key customer on-sites, SICs, and workshops, as well as conferences (TDX, DF, etc.) Make Customers Builder-Ready Ensure architecture teams create the clarity required before hands-on building begins: business outcome, use case and scope, target architecture, data and grounding, actions and integrations, trust guardrails, dependencies, and path to production Partner closely with Builder leadership so Builder teams enter engagements understanding the architecture, key decisions, dependencies, and definition of done Maintain a clear distinction between architectural leadership and hands-on implementation while ensuring the two motions operate seamlessly together Identify architectural blockers early and mobilize the right teams to resolve them before they slow execution Help create repeatable patterns that move customers faster from strategy and experimentation to production Be an Exceptional Cross-Functional Partner Operate as a deeply trusted partner to Sales, Solutions, Builders, Success, Product, Engineering, and other specialist organizations Bring teams together around the customer problem rather than organizational boundaries Create clear roles and handoffs while maintaining shared accountability for the customer outcome Partner with peers generously. The goal is not for Architecture to own every technical conversation, but to make every team around it stronger Surface patterns from the field to Product and Engineering, and help translate pr