Senior Director, Engineering in London

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We are seeking a Senior Director of Distributed Database Systems Engineering to lead next-generation data architecture innovation within an R&D / incubation-style team. This role is designed for a deeply experienced technical leader (typically 20+ years of relevant experience or equivalent depth) who can set architectural direction, drive hands-on prototyping, and influence platform strategy across a complex services ecosystem.

You will focus on forward-looking distributed database architecture and advanced data strategies—especially partitioning, replication, consistency, indexing, and performance at scale. The emphasis is on technical innovation and architectural leadership, not long-term operational ownership of an established production platform.

• Set technical vision for distributed data architecture capabilities that enable high-scale, high-availability systems.
• Lead and sponsor prototypes that explore novel approaches to partitioning, replication, and consistency (including clear tradeoff articulation).
• Drive innovation in storage, indexing, and query optimization strategies for large-scale transactional and analytical workloads.
• Evaluate and evolve architectural patterns for distributed data platforms within multi-service, multi-tenant ecosystems.
• Partner across engineering and product leadership to align data architecture direction with platform strategy and long-term roadmaps.
• Lead architectural reviews and act as an executive-level technical authority for distributed systems design decisions.
• Develop and mentor senior technical talent (architects, principal engineers), establishing strong technical bar and best practices.
• Explore and define data infrastructure patterns that support intelligent and agent-driven workloads (e.g., autonomy, planning, tool use, and orchestration at scale).

• 20+ years or equivalent experience in database engineering, storage systems, or distributed systems architecture (or equivalent depth).
• Deep expertise in distributed systems theory, including CAP tradeoffs, consistency models, failure modes, and resilience patterns.
• Extensive experience with sharding, replication, high availability, and large-scale data integrity/performance optimization.
• Strong command of indexing, transactional semantics, and performance tuning at scale.
• Proficiency in systems-level or backend programming languages, with the ability to be hands-on in prototypes and architectural exploration.
• Proven leadership delivering architecture strategy across teams/orgs, including influencing senior stakeholders and mentoring senior engineers.

• Contributions to database engines, storage-layer infrastructure, or query execution components.
• Experience with large-scale SaaS multi-tenant data environments.
• Experience designing and running benchmarking / performance experiments for distributed systems.
• Exposure to data architectures that support AI-assisted, agentic, or automation-heavy workloads.

When you join Salesforce, you'll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do 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.

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please submit a request via this 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. We are a recognised Disability Confident member under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme. We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.