Salesforce Engineer Levels Explained: AMTS to Distinguished Engineer

Salesforce engineer levels run from AMTS to Distinguished Engineer, which is eight reported levels for individual contributors. An individual contributor is an engineer who designs and writes software rather than managing people.

Five of those eight levels share one phrase. AMTS, MTS, SMTS, LMTS and PMTS all expand to a form of Member of Technical Staff, which is what Salesforce uses in place of the numbered levels that Google and Amazon publish.

That naming is the part candidates find confusing, because the prefix is the only thing carrying the level. A Salesforce recruiter says SMTS where a Google recruiter would say L5, and the two titles do not describe the same scope of work.

This guide expands every abbreviation, gives the years of experience each level asks for, shows the pay reported for it, and compares the set with Google, Meta and Amazon.

Salesforce Levels in One Table

Salesforce publishes no level map for engineering and prints no level code on its postings. The level names and their order come from levels.fyi, and the years of experience come from the requirements printed on Salesforce postings for each title. Candidate reports supply the Google and Meta column, and those reports disagree with each other, so treat it as approximate.

Why Salesforce Says Member of Technical Staff

The phrase predates Salesforce. Bell Labs gave its technical people one shared title, Member of Technical Staff, so that engineers were not sorted by rank. What Salesforce added is a set of prefixes: Associate, then nothing, then Senior, Lead and Principal. The useful part of a Salesforce title is therefore the first word, because that word is the level.

Salesforce posts the plain industry titles for the same bands as well. A posting titled Principal Software Engineer, Data Platform describes the role in its own text as the Principal Member of Technical Staff for that team. Many postings print both forms, for example Software Engineering MTS.

Salesforce also advertises two levels in a single posting, such as Software Engineering MTS/SMTS, which asks for three or more years at MTS and five or more at SMTS. Your level is decided inside the Salesforce loop, which is the set of interviews run for one candidate, rather than when you apply. Ask the recruiter which level the loop is calibrated for.

AMTS: Associate Member of Technical Staff

AMTS is the entry level, used almost entirely for college graduates. Postings ask for a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science or a related field, and for graduation within the previous twelve months.

An AMTS works on defined tasks with guidance from more senior engineers, and joins a new graduate program that runs for a year. The job is to learn the codebase and the deployment tools.

levels.fyi reports median total compensation near $176K in the United States for this level, where total compensation means base salary plus the annual stock grant plus the bonus. Candidates report one to three years at AMTS, and the promotion to MTS is the change from being given tasks to being given problems.

MTS: Member of Technical Staff

MTS is the first level that expects full independence. Salesforce postings for it commonly ask for three or more years of professional software engineering experience.

An MTS owns features end to end, takes part in design discussions for the team's systems, and reviews other engineers' code.

The separation from AMTS is independence rather than coding skill. An AMTS is told what to build, while an MTS is told which problem to solve.

SMTS: Senior Member of Technical Staff

SMTS is the senior engineer level, and it is the level most Salesforce engineers hold. United States postings usually ask for five or more years of professional software development experience, while postings in India for the same title often ask for six to nine years.

An SMTS owns a service or a system rather than a feature inside one. They set the design for that area, review the designs other engineers bring, and lead projects that involve a few people.

Candidate reports describe SMTS as the level engineers stay at longest. Some call it the terminal level, meaning a level where you can spend a whole career with no pressure to be promoted. Salesforce does not publish a terminal level, so treat that as a pattern in reported experience rather than a stated policy.

The pay step from MTS to SMTS is the largest in the lower half of the level system, from a reported median near 193K to one near 266K.

LMTS: Lead Member of Technical Staff

LMTS is where the scope crosses team boundaries. Salesforce postings for it ask for eight or more years of software engineering experience, and one such posting asks for five of those years in technical leadership roles.

An LMTS owns the architecture of an area that several teams build inside, and sets the standards those teams work to. The deliverable is technical direction that lasts, not a single shipped feature.

The step from SMTS to LMTS is the hardest promotion candidates report at Salesforce, and the reason is scope rather than difficulty. Work that stays inside one team's backlog demonstrates excellence at SMTS, not readiness for LMTS. Reports put the wait at two to more than five years.

Senior and lead loops at Salesforce depend on design judgment rather than puzzles, so working through complete system design problems is the highest value preparation. The system design questions Salesforce asks are a reasonable starting set.

PMTS: Principal Member of Technical Staff

PMTS is the top of the Member of Technical Staff titles. Salesforce postings for it ask for ten or more years in the United States, with twelve or more on some, and one posting in India asks for fifteen or more.

A PMTS sets the technical direction for a product area, acts as the architect other engineers consult, and resolves the disagreements teams cannot settle themselves. There are few of them per organization.

Candidate reports place PMTS near Google L6, and one maps it to an internal Salesforce grade of level nine. The same reports say promotion above PMTS is difficult, so engineers expect a long stay here.

Architect, Principal Architect and Distinguished Engineer

Three individual contributor levels sit above PMTS in the levels.fyi list.

Architect owns architecture across several systems and sets the standards other engineers build against. levels.fyi reports a median total compensation near $472K in the United States.

Principal Architect is the level above it. levels.fyi reports a median above $1M, but from a small number of submissions, so treat it as a signal and not a band. One candidate report puts Principal Architect at internal level eleven, near Google L7 or L8.

Distinguished Engineer is the top of the reported individual contributor levels. It is awarded rather than applied for, very few people hold it, and levels.fyi shows no pay data for it.

Salesforce also uses Distinguished in customer-facing titles such as Distinguished Solution Engineer, which is a customer-facing sales role and not an engineering level. Reported level lists for engineering contain no Fellow title, so check the careers site if you see Salesforce described with one.

How Salesforce Pay Works

Salesforce pays a base salary, an annual stock grant and a bonus. The table gives levels.fyi medians for the United States.

These are crowdsourced medians rather than company figures, and the stock part moves with the share price, so check levels.fyi for current numbers before any offer conversation.

Stock is a small share of pay at the lower levels and grows with the level. At AMTS the annual grant is about 12 percent of total compensation, and at PMTS it is about 21 percent. Many United States postings print a base salary range as well, because several states require it.

In India, levels.fyi reports medians of about 26 LPA at AMTS, 47 LPA at MTS, 74 LPA at SMTS and 112 LPA at LMTS. LPA means lakh of rupees per year, and one lakh is 100,000 rupees. Postings in India often ask for more years at the same title than United States postings do.

How Salesforce Levels Compare to Google, Meta and Amazon

Salesforce titles read one step more senior than the matching title elsewhere. A Salesforce Lead engineer sits close to a Google Senior engineer, not to a Google Staff engineer.

Candidates who move from Salesforce to Google or Meta often report being down-leveled, which means offered a level below the one their current title suggests. Reports disagree about the exact mapping, with some placing SMTS at Google L4 and others at Google L5, so compare the scope of the work and the total compensation rather than the title. For the five-company picture, see the FAANG software engineer levels guide.

Frequently asked questions

What does AMTS mean at Salesforce? AMTS means Associate Member of Technical Staff, the entry level for software engineers. Postings ask for a computer science degree and graduation within the previous twelve months. levels.fyi reports median total compensation near $176K in the United States.

What is SMTS at Salesforce? SMTS means Senior Member of Technical Staff, the senior engineer level and the one most Salesforce engineers hold. United States postings ask for five or more years of experience, and an SMTS owns a service or system rather than a feature inside one. levels.fyi reports a median near $266K.

What is the difference between SMTS and LMTS at Salesforce? Scope, not coding skill. An SMTS owns a system inside one team, while an LMTS owns architecture that several teams build inside. That is why work confined to one team's backlog does not earn the promotion, however well it is done.

Is LMTS higher than PMTS at Salesforce? No, PMTS is higher. The order is AMTS, MTS, SMTS, LMTS, then PMTS, so Lead sits one step below Principal. Reported pay matches that order, with medians near 309K at LMTS and 428K at PMTS.

How many years of experience do you need for Salesforce SMTS? Five or more on most United States postings. Specialized postings ask for eight or more, and postings in India for the same title commonly ask for six to nine years. Salesforce sets the level in the loop, so the years printed on a posting are a guide rather than a rule.

What is the terminal level at Salesforce? Salesforce does not publish one. A terminal level is one you can stay at for a whole career without promotion pressure, and candidate reports most often name SMTS, describing engineers who hold it for a decade or more. Some reports name LMTS instead.

Does Salesforce use level numbers like Google L5? Not in public. Job postings carry titles only, with no level code. Candidate reports mention internal grade numbers, for example PMTS as level nine and Principal Architect as level eleven, but Salesforce does not publish them.

What comes after Principal MTS at Salesforce? Architect, then Principal Architect, then Distinguished Engineer, according to the levels.fyi list. These levels are rare, and Distinguished Engineer is awarded rather than applied for. The Salesforce interview process is worth reading before an offer conversation at any of them.

If you are preparing for an offer conversation, Grokking Tech Salary Negotiations covers the scripts for level and compensation negotiation.

Related reading

• FAANG Software Engineer Levels Explained
• Google Software Engineer Levels Explained
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• Microsoft Software Engineer Levels Explained
• Salesforce System Design Mock Interview
• Salary Negotiation for Software Engineers