Salesforce today announced it has landed its first-ever Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) partner training in South Africa, running 5–7 October 2026 in Johannesburg. The three-day, hands-on workshop extends Salesforce’s global, invite-only FDE Partner Network to the South African market for the first time, giving local partners early access to a programme that has driven Agentforce implementation success for partners elsewhere in the world.
Through the “Making Agents Matter” curriculum, participating partner practitioners build practical, engineering-grade skills to design, build, and deploy AI agents for South African customers, helping translate AI strategy into measurable, value-driven business outcomes. The agenda spans Design & Build (Day 1), Evaluate/Deploy/Monitor (Day 2), and Troubleshoot/Optimize/Scale (Day 3).
Investing in high-end, scarce local skills – not just entry-level talent
Beyond a single workshop, the programme reflects Salesforce’s broader commitment to building AI talent locally in South Africa. While much of the country’s technology skilling conversation focuses on entry-level training, the FDE programme is deliberately aimed at the opposite end of the spectrum: developing scarce, high-end engineering skills capable of designing and scaling production-grade AI systems. Nine partners, spanning the region’s largest systems integrators and specialist consultancies, are part of Salesforce’s FDE Network in South Africa, giving the programme reach across the country’s partner ecosystem. By closing this high-end skills gap alongside entry-level initiatives, Salesforce aims to ensure South Africa’s partner ecosystem can deliver, not just discuss, AI-driven transformation for local customers.
Raising the bar before day one
Delegates complete a rigorous set of prerequisites before attending – Agentforce Specialist Certification, Data 360 Consultant Certification, Agentblazer Legend, Agentforce Implementation Ready, and Data 360 Implementation Ready – representing roughly 80 hours of technical learning and certification testing. This ensures every practitioner arrives with a strong technical foundation ahead of advanced, in-person training. But the bar doesn’t drop once the workshop ends: delegates must demonstrate their skills in practice before graduating to Agentforce FDE Practitioner status, Salesforce’s mark of a field-tested, customer-ready AI delivery expert.
Part of a fast-growing global network
The Johannesburg workshop is part of Salesforce’s global Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) partner enablement program, which has already certified more than 1,000 Partner FDEs across AMER, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM, spanning 140 partner firms worldwide. South Africa’s inclusion marks the programme’s continued expansion into new markets.
“South African businesses are ready to move fast on AI, but scaling it properly takes specialist skills that are still developing and maturing in the market. Investing in our partner ecosystem is how we close that gap – by extending our own capabilities out to the partner network, we meet the growing demand for scale and help customers move from pilot to production faster.
“Bringing the FDE programme to South Africa for the first time means local partners now have our support to develop that expertise in-house, and our customers benefit directly.” said Linda Saunders, Senior Director, Solution Engineering (Africa) & Country Manager, Salesforce South Africa
“The Salesforce Partner FDE Network brings our internal capabilities and standards directly to our regional partners, providing organisations across Africa with the deep, local expertise needed to become true Agentic Enterprises.
“The commitment our African partners have shown to building skills locally is fundamental to driving digital transformation and customer success across the continent.” Said Graeme Leslie, RVP, Alliances and Channels, Salesforce
“At BlueSky, we’ve always believed that world-class AI delivery capability and talent can be built right here in South Africa – this programme is helping us do exactly that. We put seven of our people through the training to establish BlueSky as a locally certified partner within Salesforce’s global DE Network.
“For us, this isn’t just about certification, it’s about building engineers who can take AI from promise to measurable impact. It’s a long-term investment in our people and our clients, and proof that this calibre of skill doesn’t have to be imported – it’s being built, and led, right here at home.” Said Rassie Engelbrecht, Co-CEO, BlueSky Digital Solutions
