How to Get Promoted from AMTS to MTS Software Engineer at Salesforce
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You've been at Salesforce for about a year. Your code gets approved in reviews, you're shipping tickets on time, and your manager seems satisfied. But nobody has told you whether you're actually tracking toward MTS or whether you're going to be stuck as an Associate Member of Technical Staff for two more years while the person who started the same week as you moves up.
The AMTS to MTS promotion is the first real level transition at Salesforce. It's the jump from "still learning the codebase" to "independently productive engineer." Salesforce expects most competent AMTS engineers to make this transition within 18 months to two years. The compensation increase is meaningful, roughly $30K-$50K in total comp based on Levels.fyi data. But it still requires your manager to nominate you, and the nomination has to survive leadership review. Here's how the whole thing works.
What Changes from AMTS to MTS
AMTS is Salesforce's entry-level engineering title: Associate Member of Technical Staff. MTS, Member of Technical Staff, is where Salesforce considers you a fully contributing engineer who can handle real work without constant supervision. The expectations shift in specific ways.
| Dimension | AMTS (Associate MTS) | MTS (Member of Technical Staff) |
|---|---|---|
| Independence | Works on scoped tasks with guidance from senior engineers | Owns features end-to-end with minimal oversight |
| Scope | Individual tickets and bug fixes within a feature area | Full features, including understanding requirements and edge cases |
| Design input | Implements what's handed to you | Contributes to design discussions, asks good questions about trade-offs |
| Codebase knowledge | Learning your team's corner of the multi-cloud codebase | Understands how your code fits into the broader cloud product |
| Debugging | Fixes bugs in code you wrote or understand | Debugs unfamiliar code, traces issues across service boundaries |
| Communication | Reports status when asked | Proactively surfaces progress, blockers, and risks in standups and 1:1s |
The core shift: at AMTS, someone breaks down the work for you. At MTS, your manager gives you a problem and you figure out how to solve it. That's the gap you need to close.
How Salesforce Promotions Work at AMTS-MTS
Salesforce runs promotions twice a year. Your manager nominates you during one of two windows (November or May), and promotions get announced in February or August. The process is manager-driven, not committee-based, which makes your relationship with your manager more important than at companies like Google.
Here's how it actually plays out:
- Your manager decides you're ready and nominates you during the nomination window
- They assemble a case based on your performance data and V2MOM alignment
- Leadership reviews the nomination and either approves or pushes back
- If approved, the promotion is announced with the next batch
V2MOM stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. It's Marc Benioff's strategic framework that cascades from the CEO down to individual engineers. Your work gets evaluated partly on how well it aligns with your team's and manager's V2MOM. This sounds abstract, but it means something concrete: if you're working on things that directly support your manager's stated priorities, your promotion case writes itself. If you're off doing side work that nobody asked for, your V2MOM alignment is weak and your manager has a harder time justifying the nomination.
The manager-driven structure cuts both ways. You don't need to survive a cold committee read of your packet like at Google. But if your manager doesn't know your work, doesn't prioritize your growth, or doesn't have the political capital to push a nomination through, you're stuck regardless of how good your code is.
How Long AMTS to MTS Should Take
| Pace | Timeline | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | 12-15 months | Strong ramp, good project fit, proactive about ownership |
| Standard | 15-20 months | Steady growth, demonstrating independence over two review cycles |
| Slow (flag) | 2+ years | Something structural is off: wrong team, disengaged manager, or skill gaps |
AMTS to MTS is the promotion Salesforce expects you to make. Unlike SMTS, which is a terminal level where many engineers spend their entire career, AMTS carries an informal expectation that you'll advance. Staying at AMTS beyond two years starts generating questions about your trajectory.
The compensation jump reinforces why this matters. Based on Levels.fyi data, median total comp moves from roughly $176K at AMTS to $208K at MTS. It's not the biggest jump on the ladder, but it unlocks the path to SMTS where the compensation and responsibility increase more substantially.
What Actually Gets You Promoted
Own a feature from start to finish
The clearest signal of MTS readiness is completing a feature without someone else scoping every step. This doesn't need to be a quarter-long project. It could be a well-defined API improvement, a refactor of a legacy component, or a customer-facing fix that requires understanding the full request path. What matters is you drove it: understood the problem, proposed the approach, wrote the code, handled edge cases, and shipped it.
If your current workload is entirely tickets that someone else broke down for you, talk to your manager about taking on a small feature where you own the full cycle.
Learn the codebase beyond your immediate area
Salesforce's multi-cloud architecture is massive. At AMTS, you know your team's code. At MTS, you're expected to understand how your work connects to adjacent services and the broader cloud product. When a bug crosses a service boundary, an MTS engineer doesn't stop at the edge of their team's code and file a ticket for someone else. They trace the issue, figure out where it originates, and either fix it or bring a clear diagnosis to the right team.
Start reading code outside your immediate area. When you fix a bug, trace the root cause even if it's in unfamiliar territory. When a design review happens for an adjacent feature, attend it and ask questions.
Align your work to your manager's V2MOM
Your manager has specific goals and methods in their V2MOM. Understand what those are. When you pick up work or propose a project, frame it in terms of how it advances those priorities. This isn't about being political, it's about making your manager's job easy when they need to justify your nomination.
Ask in a 1:1: "What's the most important thing on your V2MOM right now? How can my work support that?" Then do it, and make sure your manager knows you did it.
Surface your work proactively
Salesforce promotions are manager-driven. If your manager doesn't know what you accomplished, you don't get nominated. Don't assume they're tracking everything. Managers at Salesforce can have large teams across multiple workstreams.
Send a short weekly update in your 1:1 doc: what you shipped, what's in progress, and what's blocked. When you finish something meaningful, say so. This isn't bragging. It's giving your manager the raw material they need to build your promotion case.
Mistakes That Keep Engineers at AMTS
Waiting for assignments. AMTS engineers often sit idle after finishing a task, waiting for their manager or tech lead to hand them the next one. MTS engineers see what needs doing and pick it up. Look at the backlog. Ask what's high priority. Volunteer for the unglamorous work that's blocking the team. This signals initiative, which is exactly what your manager wants to see.
Not ramping on the codebase fast enough. Salesforce's codebase is enormous and can feel overwhelming. Some AMTS engineers respond by staying in their comfort zone, only touching files they understand. But after 12 months, your manager expects you to navigate unfamiliar code without hand-holding. Invest time in understanding the architecture around your feature area. Read the onboarding docs that exist, and when they don't exist, read the code directly.
Treating every problem as a question. At AMTS, asking questions is expected and encouraged. But if you're still asking for help on problems you could figure out after 12 months, your manager notices. The shift from "asks good questions" to "proposes solutions" is what separates AMTS from MTS. Before asking, spend 30-60 minutes investigating on your own. Come with what you tried and a hypothesis, not just "I'm stuck."
Not tracking your work. When the nomination window opens, your manager needs to recall your contributions and build a case. If you haven't been surfacing your wins in 1:1s and documenting what you've shipped, your manager's nomination will be based on what they remember, not what you actually did. Engineers who track their work build stronger cases. Engineers who scramble to remember produce vague summaries.
Ignoring the V2MOM framework. Some engineers dismiss V2MOM as corporate theater. It's not. Your manager's ability to nominate you depends partly on showing that your work aligns with strategic priorities. If you can't articulate how your contributions fit into the V2MOM, you're making your manager do that translation work for you, and they might not bother.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to get promoted from AMTS to MTS at Salesforce?
Most engineers who get promoted spend 15-20 months at AMTS. Strong performers with the right project fit can do it in 12-15 months. Staying at AMTS beyond two years is unusual and worth a direct conversation with your manager about what's missing from your case.
Is AMTS to MTS considered easy at Salesforce?
Relative to later promotions, yes. The bar for AMTS to MTS is lower than MTS to SMTS, and the expectations are more concrete: own features, debug independently, communicate proactively. But it's still a manager-driven nomination that has to survive leadership review. "Expected" doesn't mean automatic.
What's the pay difference between AMTS and MTS at Salesforce?
Based on Levels.fyi, median total compensation moves from roughly $176K at AMTS to $208K at MTS. The increase comes from base salary growth and slightly larger RSU grants. It's not the biggest jump on the ladder, but it opens the door to SMTS where the compensation increase is more substantial.
Do I need to exceed expectations on my performance review to get promoted?
Not necessarily for AMTS to MTS. While stock refreshers below LMTS require an "Exceed Expectations" rating, the promotion itself is based on your manager's judgment that you're performing at MTS level. That said, an "Exceed Expectations" rating certainly strengthens your case and signals to leadership that the nomination is well-supported.
Should I switch teams if I'm stuck at AMTS?
Only if the problem is your team or manager, not your skills. If your team doesn't have work that lets you demonstrate MTS-level independence, a move might help. But team changes at Salesforce mean rebuilding context in a new area of a very large codebase. Your new manager won't know your work, and you'll spend months ramping up again. Have the direct conversation with your current manager first. If nothing changes over a full promotion cycle, then consider moving.
CareerClimb tracks your wins, maps them to what Salesforce evaluates at each level, and tells you exactly what evidence you're missing. When the next nomination window opens, your case is already built. Download CareerClimb