Welcome to the Jungle: A Story of Career Discovery

Shayna Goldfarb
Salesforce Engineering
4 min readApr 23, 2019
Kyle Tobener, Salesforce Director, Enterprise Security

Our Salesforce employees come from all industries and walks of life, many with unique stories to tell about how they arrived with us. Very few, however, had their proverbial “aha” moment in a Thai jungle. But Kyle Tobener, our Enterprise Security Director, experienced exactly that.

He recently told us his story — and when you pull back the brush, it’s full of surprises.

“It’s a long, strange story,” Kyle said. “I’ve always had two loves: animals and computers. So, in college I studied both before deciding on Zoology, specializing in animal behavior.”

But Kyle’s love for computers never left, and he often helped biology professors with programming projects.

Shortly after graduation, he was hired as a research assistant for a project in a remote Thai jungle studying Langur monkeys. So, Kyle put everything he owned in a storage unit and moved to Thailand. But he’d soon discover that the job was not for him.

“Being in the jungle all day was amazing,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong … I just didn’t want to observe monkeys all the time.”

The issue was compounded when Kyle was suddenly rushed to the hospital with a hallucinogenic fever.

“I came out of my stupor realizing I’d made a terrible mistake. I quit and returned to the States,” he recalled. “I definitely learned from my jungle experience that I wanted to do something more grounded in technology.”

While Zoology was still on his mind, Kyle was introduced to his girlfriend’s cousin, who was running a consulting company and needed a developer to help him on something called Salesforce.

“After months of reading lots of documentation, combined with plenty of trial and error, I was a Salesforce developer helping companies move their businesses to the cloud. I absolutely loved it!”

What really grabbed Kyle was seeing firsthand how Salesforce was revolutionizing businesses. He knew he wanted to be part of it.

“Sales and marketing departments were migrating off of their on-premise software and their internal IT departments had no clue how to keep up. I could immediately tell this company had a massive future.”

Kyle stayed the course, and by late 2010, he landed a role as an engineer at the company he’d grown to love.

“The work-life integration at Salesforce is superb!” Kyle told us. “I recently became a father, and the support has been amazing. I was able to take three months off to spend time with my new little girl without feeling pressured about missing work.”

In San Francisco, where Kyle is located, Salesforce also offers an on-site daycare.

“Now my daughter commutes with me to work every day, and she loves Salesforce as much as I do. The facility is first rate, and I can visit whenever I like, which helps me stay connected to her.”

And since arriving at Salesforce, Kyle has been empowered to live out his ideal career journey.

While he’s leveled up to director for his team, he didn’t start in the information security department. But he knew that’s where he wanted to be, and he was able to navigate his way with the full support of the company.

“When I wanted to take security training that wasn’t directly relevant to my role, Salesforce paid for it,” Kyle said. “When I needed mentoring on what I should be studying, members of the Salesforce security team provided that and showed me the path I could take.

“And when I was ready, Salesforce let me transfer into my dream job.”

Today, Kyle oversees enterprise security, and works to uphold one of Salesforce’s prominent values: Trust.

Salesforce is a cloud first company, and every business unit is automating their work stream. Kyle says:

“In my role, I make sure Salesforce puts security first when buying or building apps. This involves a lot of effort reviewing code and performing penetration tests, but the outcome is absolutely worth it. Employees know the tools they use are secure and their data is always protected.”

Over nine years at Salesforce, Kyle has had many opportunities to grow his career. These days he runs a team with eleven direct reports that do work he’s extremely proud of. He also takes time to mentor others like him who really want a career in security, so they get a shot at their dream job too.

“I truly love the role I have at Salesforce and look forward to doing it every single day.”

The Salesforce Security team is growing. Want to grow your career and transform your everyday? Check out our open roles.

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