Salesforce opens engineering office in Microsoft’s and Amazon’s backyards

Salesforce opens engineering office in Microsoft’s and Amazon’s backyards. Salesforce announced today that it plans to open an engineering and innovation hub in the Seattle area, greatly expanding its presence there. Company co-founder Parker Harris says the office, which is located in the Nine Two Nine Office Tower in Bellevue, will be dedicated mostly to supporting the company’s artificial intelligence initiative, introduced last Fall, which was dubbed Einstein. While the team is based in Bellevue, it will work closely with the Einstein development teams in San Francisco. It’s just a practical matter, according to Harris. It’s getting increasingly difficult to find engineering talent in the Bay Area, and the company is growing rapidly, making it even more challenging. Salesforce bought a number of companies in 2016 including MetaMind, which it acquired last April for $32.8 million. Harris says Socher will have a big role when it comes to staffing the Bellevue office and will work with the teams there from his home base in San Francisco. The company is not just offering these engineers the chance to work on the company’s artificial intelligence platform. For now, the company claims that it’s nothing more than trying to gain a bigger foothold in the area, as it faces a talent shortage at home in San Francisco.