Few companies know how to invest in Salesforce as well as Snowflake. From 2018-2020, the Sales org grew 15x - and so did the Salesforce team.
We analyzed the exact hiring roadmap and sequencing of hires during the period of explosive grow between 2018 to 2024.
Today, Snowflake is an absolute juggernaut.
- $734m in Revenue Last Quarter (growing 34% YOY)
- 7,000+ Total Headcount | 2,500 Sales Reps
- 65-person Global Salesforce Team
If you rewind to early 2018, things looked a lot different:
- 325 Total Headcount | ~50 Sales Reps
- (1) Director of GTM Systems
But as a Sales-led culture, they knew the growth ahead was going to stretch their Sales & Marketing orgs like few companies have the opportunity to experience. This is a company that spends massively on Sales & Marketing:
In 2020, they invested over 100% of total revenue back into Sales & Marketing.
And not much changed in the years that followed: 81% of total revenue in 2021; 61% in 2022; 54% in 2023.
Profitable? No. Worth it? Absolutely given they saw year-over-year ARR grow over 100%, including 120% in FY21 and 106% in FY22, while doing $1.1B.
Scalable GTM Teams Start with Technology Infrastructure
The only way to build a scalable GTM foundation is to start early.
It's true on the GTM Ops & Systems side of the house.
2018-2020
- Snowflake's Sales org grew from 30 to 450 Reps
- And the Salesforce team grew from 1 to 16 people
Hires 1 thru 16 on Snowflake’s Salesforce Team:
2017:
(1) Director, Sales Systems & Tools
2018:
(1) Salesforce Administrator
(2) Salesforce Developers
(1) Director, Sales Systems and Process
2019:
5) Salesforce Administrators
(5) Salesforce Developers
(1) Director of Enterprise GTM & CDP Platforms
At this stage, the org structure looks fine but has some gaps.
- (3) GTM Systems Leaders
- (6) Salesforce Administrators
- (7) Salesforce Engineers
If they continued on an identical growth path, you might be worried.
You need to bridge top-down planning with bottom-up execution.
👉 Systems Leadership plans the strategic roadmap
👉 Admins/Engineers handle execution
✅ Business Analysts, Product Owners, and Architects fill in the middle
It’s precisely at this stage of growth that companies are happy they invested in the right Salesforce Leadership early.
The foundation of what has been built is solid.
And they know exactly how to scale capabilities from here.
2020-2024
Between 2020-2024, the Sales org at Snowflake grew another 5.5x (from 450 Reps to 2,000+).
And the Salesforce team grew 4x in that time (16 people to 65 people globally).
Salesforce Team Structure Today:
(6) Business Systems Leaders
(3) Salesforce Architects
(12) Salesforce Product Owners
(15) Salesforce Business Analysts
(6) Salesforce Administrators
(20+) Salesforce Engineers
Full Breakdown of the Salesforce Team at Snowflake
Key Takeaways
- By mid-2020, they had 5 Business Systems Leaders, a strong layer capable of driving a proactive, long-term product vision; however, they still lacked the critical Business Analyst / PM layer bridging the gaps.
In July 2020, they added the 1st Salesforce Product Owner, followed by another in Sept 2020, and a Business Analyst in Dec 2020.
- The early years were about Delivery capacity, the recent years were about transforming into a center of Product innovation. In 2021, Snowflake added a total of 27 people to the Salesforce team, a year of massive expansion. 45% of these new hires were Business Analysts or Product Owners, a clear signal they knew how to address the gaps in the current team structure and a trend that accelerated with 2023 hiring.
- The current ratio of Administrators:Developers still appears to be overweighted toward Development. However, there is a high degree of sophistication in this org with a heavy reliance on custom integrations with Mulesoft, boosting the need for Engineering capacity.
Additionally, no company wants to have a bloated Salesforce Admin team providing support and the lean ratio of Admins:Users (1 Admin per 415 Reps) speaks to the quality of org design and strong user adoption.
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