I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Salesforce in Jul 2017
Interview
The interview process was very straight forward. The initial conversation was with the manager of the SE group that I was referred to apply for before engaging the recruiter. The recruiter was great and took time to explain the process. This expectation setting was important as the next few weeks would be pretty fast moving. After the recruiter screen, I was set for a manager and two peer interviews. The key to these interviews was doing some homework on the company prior.
The last step is a panel presentation onsite in one of the Salesforce offices. The panel consist of peers, direct manager, and others. My panel team included an Account Executive that I would work directly with and managers of other SE teams. This is the hardest step in the process and the team really went out of their way to help me understand the expectations. During the presentation, they ask hard questions and the clock is not your friend. My assumption is that they were looking to see how you think on your feet when you have to deviate from the script. I enjoyed the format and it was as close to real life that I have seen in an interview process for a pre-sales role.
The Salesforce YouTube channel is the single best resource for getting a feel for how Salesforce communicates and what is important for them in the market.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you drive innovation in an industry that is currently lagging?
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Salesforce (Herndon, VA) in Aug 2017
Interview
First met with recruiter and then with hiring manager followed by short peer interviews and with senior management. Final interview was a panel where I had to demonstrate Salesforce back to the group and give a presentation. The process was lengthy and am not sure that having the interviewee demonstrate SFDC software back to the team is the best way to showcase that person's potential to be a great solution engineer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about at typical sales cycle in your current role?