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Comment by Nrsolis | Hacker News Reader

I interviewed with Salesforce and I have to tell you that I found their culture a bit ....weird. It's something I couldn't put my finger on but I just had the feeling that they were all in some sort of cult or something.

I didn't get the job. Probably a good thing.

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We got the same impression when evaluating them for our enterprise. 98% of their sales pitch made them sound very sharp, and their technology is impressive.

But that last 2% made us scratch our heads and say, "Really?"

Stuff like telling us that they cannot possibly break our apps when they push new code to the underlying platforms, that we have no need for backups because version control will suffice, etc.

These things are probably true for operational needs, but they seemed to not think deeply about DR or edge cases.

as part of engineering at sfdc, I promise you we think very deeply about backups, DR and edge cases, as well as backwards compatibility, and not breaking your code/apis.

I'd like to think we have a good track record. not perfect, of course, but don't believe everything the sales dudes say. ;o)

Have to second Peter here (hi Peter:). I used to work there, and the only weird thing for me was that they were slow to get the social web for a bunch really smart technologists. It's the enterprise DNA I suppose, but that was the only thing that didn't sit well with me. Otherwise, solid company, great people.

Ah, yes, the sales guys -- the guy who visited us seemed very sharp, and we did get a good impression, overall. But he was dismissive of our DR/business continuity questions, and it raised a number of eyebrows, hence leaving us with the impression above...

I have no trouble believing that this is more of a perception issue than a technical issue.

It is a bit , umm, different - I always describe my Salesforce Sales Engineer friend as "having drunk the Salesforce kool-aid". To me it seems like he's bought into "the company vision" in much the same way I see in many Apple employees (and customers).

He's a smart guy though, and he's been there a while now, and he's still fully convinced they're "going to change the world".

Maybe they will - I can think of _worse_ companies "winning"...

Could you explain what you mean a bit? I find the salesforce culture to be pretty cool.

Disclosure: I am an engineer at salesforce.com. That said, I'm thrilled about Heroku. It has been my favorite startup since I heard about it.

The cult of enterprise solutions.

It wasn't that.

The office in the area I was looking at was SMALL. That wasn't so much an issue but the vibe of the place was almost like a library.

I actually might enjoy that. I don't particularly dig companies who try to force everything to be "social" inside the office.

There is a time for that, sure, but getting peace and quiet to get in the hacking mindset is more important to me.

I dunno. I enjoy a collaborative work environment.

I was sufficiently spooked by their environment that I choked on a little practical exam they had set up as part of the interview process.

Anyhow...I didn't get THAT job, but I did get a BETTER one. More money, more autonomy, more interesting work.

Yeah, I think it tends to be a difference between introverted / extroverted personalities.

I also have somewhat severe ADD; open office layouts are fairly negatively impacting to my productivity.

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