Entry Level Tech Jobs Are Dying. They Beat The Odds.
We spoke with recent college graduates who scored Salesforce jobs. They know they're the exception.
As tech companies purport to shifting to AI for basic coding needs, entry-level jobs have become tenuous. This year has already seen mass layoffs across the industry, and the SF Standard reports that Big Tech hires less than half as many recent college graduates today than before the pandemic. AI integration, corporate restructuring, and cost-cutting are some of the causes. It’s a difficult time to be a skilled, eager undergraduate hoping for a first chance in the tech world.
It’s also a tough time to be the lucky few who got one.
Salesforce is among the tech supergiants to lay off thousands in the last year, mostly in its customer service sector. Its latest round of cuts happened this month. They’ve promised to hire up to a thousand “AI-native” graduates, but entry-level jobs on their engineering and sales team are extremely competitive.
Three junior Salesforce employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described being one of the very few to jump straight from college into a highly-coveted tech job, from the view of one of its top companies. And, worth mentioning, the tallest skyscraper in San Francisco. One of the employees described the Salesforce Tower as “pretty awesome.” New hires are brought up to the top floor on their first day.
They all described their entry as gradual, welcoming, and exciting, while inevitably intimidating. They are highly aware that their jobs are commodities, and describe a work culture where they are, too.
“The mentality is, it’s a privilege to be here, so you work your ass off,” one said. “Any time we meet someone from higher up, they’re really excited to see us at the beginning of our careers, starting at Salesforce.”
Their first month was a long onboarding process that tapered out gradually. Junior employees are introduced to as many coworkers and supervisors as possible, from all departments. They felt an effort on the part of the company to set them up for success.
From a warm welcome, new employees must hit the ground running. The learning curve is sharp and constant, as are reminders that their jobs are only as secure as their performance.
“What surprised me about my job so far is how rapidly things change,” said a junior employee on the sales team. “I’d say we have, in our sales process, an internal change in what our day-to-day looks like every two months or so. Because of AI, things are changing so rapidly. You wouldn’t see this kind of innovation, probably, three years ago. The sales world looks different every three months.”
They worked to get the hang of things quickly, but how their jobs are done can change month to month. Job insecurity is a constant source of stress. Keeping their jobs can feel as competitive as it was to get them in the first place.
“The pace is just so fast. We are ready to make shit happen very quickly,” said another. “The amount of uncertainty there can be, given this rise of AI, even though Salesforce is at the forefront of developing a lot of AI there, too. It’s definitely been interesting to see what switches in the workforce suit AI. Sometimes being a little worried, like, ‘Our jobs are going to get replaced—oh, no they’re not, we’re good.’”
“Aside from AI replacing our jobs, that stuff, Salesforce is a large corporation. It can be intense. If you don’t hit your numbers, you’re out. That’s definitely a big stressor there. Especially in the first six months, where you’re kind of ramping up, it was definitely a big source of stress, having to know I need to hit my numbers this month or I may not have a job next month. You want to be one of the ones that makes it through.”
“They fire lots of people,” one said bluntly.
The anxiety evoked by the heightened stakes of entry-level Tech work reflects wider concern from researchers of AI in the workforce. Molly Kinder, a Brookings Institution Senior Fellow researching the impact of AI on work and workers, has said the career ladder as we know it will likely change as entry-level jobs are replaced by automation; in a 2024 Bloomberg essay, she warned that “If AI takes over the work typically done by junior employees, the basic logic of white-collar apprenticeship — tedious work in exchange for valuable experience — will break down.” An outcome of hiring fewer recent graduates is the future loss of experienced workers.
The anxiety to keep one of the few slots that guarantees experience coexists with excitement. The pressure to perform and outperform yourself and others came with the job. The internal self-awareness of Salesforce being a global superpower raises the stakes constantly.
They all said the pressure, instability, and constant change entry-level employees navigate could have easily created a toxic culture that pitted them against each other. Instead, all three gushed about the closeness and warmth within Salesforce’s youngest ranks. They rely on each other in difficult professional moments. They enjoy spending time together outside of work. Their favorite part of their jobs are each other.
“We’re all really tight-knit,” one said. “It’s a really competitive job and that trauma bonds us.”
How they are expected to do their jobs is always changing. How they are expected to perform is not. They paint a picture of an entry-level culture that is a knife fight in a phone booth, but highly aware the pressure is a privilege.
“It can be a very difficult job at times, very stressful, but we all lean on each other,” said a member of the sales team. “Sometimes when the job sucks, at least we have each other. We’re going through it together.”