How to Get an Internship at Salesforce
Want to work at Salesforce? Keep reading for the Simplify Team's advice on how to land an internship at one of the largest cloud-based software companies!
Photo by Austin Distel / Unsplash
Salesforce is one of the largest technology companies in the US, with more than 73,000 employees. With a wide range of roles and competitive salaries, internships at Salesforce are some of the most sought after positions in tech. Keep reading to learn about what it looks like to intern at Salesforce, and how you can maximize your chances of landing an offer!
The Experience
Salesforce has dozens of internship opportunities ranging across many sectors and industries. Today, we will be focusing on primarily on their most popular technology roles. Some of these roles Salesforce offers include:
- Software Engineer Interns
- Infrastructure & IT Interns
- UX Design Interns
- User Research Interns
Salesforce believes that every line of code they write – quite literally – impacts millions of people. As an intern for Salesforce working with the technology team, you'll have the chance to design and build solutions that improve the lives of users across the globe.
Here are some fast facts about the internship program:
- Internship Length: 12 weeks
- Salary: $54 an hour & $9,000 total housing, as well as other benefits such as transportation, paid volunteer time off, and more!
- Number of Interns: 5,000+ (across all roles)
- Office Locations: San Francisco, CA, Atlanta, GA, and more
- Application Cycle: Rolling
An exciting fact about Salesforce internships is that of the 5,000 interns each year, roughly 80% are offered full-time or part-time positions (known as "return offers").
Qualifications
For tech-based roles, you should be a master of the fundamentals, possessing core technical knowledge. You should be pursuing a degree related to computer science, and have programming experience with a modern language. On your resume, it is helpful to have experience with similar positions as well as a portfolio of your work.
Technical experience aside, you should also strive to express the core values of Salesforce, those being trust, customer success, innovation, and equality.
Timeline
Applications for Salesforce's summer internship program usually open in early August and are reviewed on a rolling basis. Salesforce has internship locations internationally, and across seasons – not just for the summer! The online application is processed through Workday, and of course, Simplify can help you autofill your application!
The Interview Process
Salesforce's interview process usually begins with a phone screen. See the below breakdown of roles for tailored expectations:
Software engineering candidates
You can expect two one-hour interviews, typically with a member of the engineering team for a technical assessment and then with the hiring manager. The interviews are mostly technical, but may include a few behavioral questions.
Infrastructure & IT candidates
You can expect a 90-minute phone interview, which includes a resume review, programming exercise, and time for Q&A. Infrastructure candidates who pass the phone screen will be invited onsite where they’ll meet our infrastructure leaders and teams, and have lunch with recent Salesforce grads to get a better sense of life at Salesforce.
UX candidates
You can expect two 45-minute phone interviews with the hiring manager and a senior member of the team.
For the first two types of candidates, we mentioned a technical assessment being a part of the interview process. These are commonly take-home coding questions operated through a platform like HackerRank.
Next Steps
As a last note, Salesforce recently announced the launch of their first ever "pre-internship" program called Futureforce Tech Launchpad. This program is designed to recruit rising college juniors from underrepresented backgrounds. If this is relevant to you, definitely consider looking into it as it can serve as a sort of "early ID" program for landing an internship. The application deadline is in late April (much later than the regular tech internship deadlines), and spans over 10 weeks from June to August.
Salesforce has an informative careers page that you can find here! Applications are opening soon, so best of luck with the job search!