Salesforce halts new engineer hiring
Salesforce says it stopped hiring new engineers for FY2026 and is leaning on AI coding agents for software development while boosting sales hiring by 20%, framing AI as a force multiplier for output. The move highlights how large incumbents are reallocating headcount around AI tooling. (latestly.com)
Marc Benioff told Bloomberg that Salesforce was using AI to handle roughly 30%–50% of its internal work across functions like engineering, coding and support. (cnbc.com) Benioff expanded on that during a podcast appearance, saying he’d “held [engineering] headcount mostly flat this year” and that the company was “seriously debating — maybe we aren’t going to hire anybody this year” for software engineering. (itpro.com) To commercialize those AI products, Benioff previously announced plans to add about 2,000 sales reps focused on AI offerings and said the company had received roughly 9,000 referrals for those openings. (cnbc.com) Salesforce’s FY26 report showed Agentforce and Data 360 ARR expanded materially (reported together in the earnings release as surging year‑over‑year to roughly $2.9 billion), while FY26 revenue was $41.5 billion and remaining performance obligation (RPO) stood at $72.4 billion. (salesforce.com) Benioff has also said the company reduced its customer‑support headcount from about 9,000 to roughly 5,000 — a drop of ~4,000 roles — as Agentforce handled a growing share of support interactions. (cnbc.com) Salesforce reported about 83,334 total employees as of its latest annual filing (January 31, 2026), providing scale for how those AI-driven shifts (support reductions, flat engineering growth, expanded go‑to‑market hires) change overall workforce composition. (thestreet.com)
