The Executive Technology Architect (ETA) is a distinguished technical strategist responsible for driving the architectural modernization and long-term innovation of our most strategic ISV partners. In this high-impact executive capacity, you serve as a Peer Advisor to Partner CTOs and Founders, guiding them through the transition from legacy development models to becoming Next-Generation, Agentic-first software companies.
You drive outcome-based engagements centered on strategic influence, hands-on enablement, and co-creation - not passive advising. You are the lead architect of the Partner's transformation journey, leveraging the ISV Center of Excellence (COE) framework to institutionalize engineering excellence, governance, and innovation.
Mission: Ensure that our most vital partners are not only compatible with our platform but are leading the market in building sophisticated, scalable, and autonomous AI-driven solutions.

Key Responsibilities
Strategic Architectural Advisory

• Act as a high-level consultant during Partner architecture reviews, providing critical input on Agentic Readiness and the transition from monolithic codebases to modular, metadata-driven architectures.
• Advise executive leadership on the Business of Engineering, helping them rethink DevOps, release management, and support models for the AI era.
• Identify and mitigate technical debt that hinders a partner's ability to adopt Next-Gen capabilities like Data Cloud and Agentforce.
• Deliver opinionated, defensible platform architecture recommendations spanning Agentforce, Data Cloud, Slack, and other Next-Gen technologies.

COE Operationalization & Governance

• Direct the implementation of the ISV Center of Excellence (COE) framework, ensuring the Partner adopts rigorous standards across the four pillars: Enablement, Architectural Governance, Engineering Intelligence, and Performance.
• Establish the Definition of Ready for partner products, ensuring every release meets the highest standards for security, scalability, and platform-native innovation.
• Champion build/buy/partner frameworks and platform standardization - helping partners make sound, long-term architecture decisions aligned with the Salesforce ecosystem.

Executive Ecosystem Development

• Foster high-bandwidth relationships between Partner technical leaders and internal Product Management teams to align roadmaps and spark innovation curiosity.
• Represent the Voice of the Partner to internal stakeholders, ensuring the platform evolves to meet the specific needs of commercial software builders.
• Author strategic thought leadership and lead private roundtables to establish the partner as a technical leader within their industry vertical.
• Build trusted advisor relationships with C-suite stakeholders - from first conversation to long-term strategic partnership.

Outcome-Driven Transformation

• Define and lead a comprehensive Technical Success Blueprint tailored to the Partner's commercial goals.
• Orchestrate the delivery of enablement and engineering resources, ensuring the Partner achieves pre-defined modernization milestones and performance benchmarks.
• Connect every architecture decision to specific business outcomes and ROI - translating platform capability into partner revenue and competitive differentiation.

AI Strategy & Builder Mentality

• Lead partners through the Agentic AI transformation: agent orchestration, tool calling, trust architecture, MCP/A2A protocols, and enterprise agentic patterns.
• Demonstrate hands-on fluency with AI tooling - build prototypes, architecture diagrams, and proof-of-concepts that establish field credibility and accelerate partner adoption.
• Advocate for responsible AI adoption with nuance, practical grounding, and governance frameworks.

Professional Qualifications

• Experience: 10+ years of technical leadership (CTO, VP of Engineering, or Principal Architect) within a SaaS or ISV environment.
• Platform Depth: Expertise in Salesforce platform evolution, with a deep understanding of Agentic AI, 2GP packaging, and Data Cloud.
• Architecture Fundamentals: Strong command of enterprise architecture: integration patterns, data modeling, identity and trust, multi-cloud design, and event-driven architecture.
• Advisory Skillset: Proven ability to influence C-suite stakeholders and drive organizational change without direct authority over execution teams.
• Strategic Vision: A history of successfully navigating complex technical transformations and aligning technology roadmaps with business revenue goals.
• AI/ML Fluency: Working knowledge of LLM patterns, RAG, grounding, AI governance, and responsible AI frameworks. Has built or prototyped something with AI - not just theoretical knowledge.

Typical backgrounds: Enterprise CTO or C-Suite, Principal/Distinguished Architect, Field CTO or Senior SE Leader, Consulting/SI Partner Executive with Salesforce-first POV.

Success Measures

• Architectural Pivot: Successful validation of the Partner's Next-Gen architecture and its alignment with Agentic-first standards.
• COE Maturity: The full operationalization of the four COE pillars within the Partner's organization.
• Commercial Innovation: Delivery of high-value, partner-led IP that expands the reach of the Salesforce ecosystem.
• Executive Partnership: Establishment of trusted, ongoing strategic relationships with Partner C-suite and technical leadership.
• AI Adoption: Measurable progress in partner Agentforce and Data Cloud adoption tied to pre-defined commercial milestones.

Why This Role
The Executive Technology Architect is a first-of-its-kind function at Salesforce - purpose-built for a moment when the platform's most strategic ISV partners need more than enablement resources or account coverage. They need a peer.
This role sits at the intersection of three forces reshaping the enterprise technology industry:

• The Agentic Shift: AI is moving from feature to architecture. Partners that win the next decade are the ones rebuilding their products around autonomous agents, real-time data, and trust-first design - and they need an expert who has already navigated that transition.
• The COE Movement: Salesforce is institutionalizing engineering excellence across its partner ecosystem at scale. The ETA is the field leader of that transformation, with a direct line to product, engineering, and executive leadership inside Salesforce.
• The Executive Gap: Most ISV partners have strong product teams but lack a strategic technology partner at the C-suite level. The ETA fills that gap and becomes one of the most trusted relationships in the Partner's leadership orbit.

For the right candidate, this is a rare opportunity to:

• Shape how the next generation of enterprise software gets built on Salesforce
• Work directly with Founders, CTOs, and technical leaders at Salesforce's most innovative ISV partners
• Influence Salesforce's own platform roadmap through the Voice of the Partner motion
• Build a function that doesn't have a playbook yet - you help write it
• Operate with the seniority, autonomy, and executive visibility that traditional SE or advisory roles rarely offer

If you are energized by transformation over transaction, and you want your fingerprints on the architecture of the future - this is the role.