Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Lead Salesforce Developer
💰 $120,000 - $180,000 per year
TechnologySoftware DevelopmentCRMSalesforce
🎯 Role Definition
As the Lead Salesforce Developer, you will serve as the technical owner and evangelist for our Salesforce ecosystem. You will work at the intersection of business needs and technical solutions—designing scalable, high‑performing applications, leading integrations, ensuring code quality, mentoring the development team and aligning the Salesforce roadmap with organisational strategy. You will champion best practices, coordinate with product and business stakeholders, and help drive our CRM platform forward as a strategic asset.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Senior Salesforce Developer
- Salesforce Technical Architect
- CRM Solutions Engineer
Advancement To:
- Salesforce Architect
- Director of CRM/Platform Engineering
- VP of Technology/CRM Transformation
Lateral Moves:
- Platform Engineering Lead – Enterprise CRM
- Head of Digital Transformation (CRM)
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Lead the design, development and deployment of custom Salesforce solutions across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud and other CRM modules, using Apex, Visualforce, Lightning Web Components (LWC) and Flows.
- Partner with business stakeholders to understand requirements, translate them into scalable technical designs, and produce high‑quality deliverables aligned with business goals.
- Architect and implement complex integrations between Salesforce and external systems via REST/SOAP APIs, middleware or batch/real‑time data pipelines.
- Establish and enforce development standards, code review practices, version control workflows (e.g., Git, SFDX) and CI/CD pipelines to ensure high quality, maintainable implementations.
- Mentor, coach and lead a team of Salesforce developers and administrators—conducting technical reviews, guidance, training and performance feedback.
- Conduct detailed code reviews, architecture reviews and ensure adherence to Salesforce best‑practice patterns, governor limits, scalability and security requirements.
- Serve as escalation point for technical issues, performance bottlenecks, system incidents and production defects—drive root‑cause analysis and corrective actions.
- Lead or participate in the full software development lifecycle (SDLC) including requirement analysis, solution design, development, testing, deployment and post‑go live support in an Agile/Scrum environment.
- Ensure robust data architecture, object model design, sharing and security model, and data governance within the Salesforce platform.
- Develop automation solutions leveraging Salesforce declarative tools (Flows, Process Builder), custom code, platform events and asynchronous processing to optimise business operations.
- Oversee the performance optimisation of the Salesforce platform—identify data volume issues, memory/gov‑limit constraints, slow queries (SOQL/SOSL), and enforce tuning strategies.
- Drive continuous improvement of the Salesforce environment—identify technical debt, propose refactoring, upgrade platforms, adopt new releases and features early.
- Serve as a business partner by translating technical insights into executive‑level communications: reporting status, risks, solutions and strategic roadmap.
- Manage development resource allocation, sprint planning, backlog grooming and support coordination between business, QA, deployment, and operations teams.
- Lead the design and deployment of large‑scale Salesforce projects (including CPQ, OmniStudio, Experience Cloud, Data Cloud) and orchestrate releases across multiple clouds/modules.
- Ensure security, compliance and governance of the Salesforce ecosystem including permission sets, sharing rules, encryption, audit tracking and data privacy standards.
- Drive DevOps and CI/CD practices specifically tailored to Salesforce: branching strategies, automated tests, change‑set pipelines, sandbox management and deployments.
- Maintain high‑quality documentation of architecture, design patterns, data models, APIs, development standards, release notes and support guides.
- Monitor and evaluate emerging Salesforce technology trends, platform enhancements and third‑party ecosystem changes; recommend adoption where appropriate.
- Provide second‑level support and troubleshooting of production Salesforce issues, working closely with support, operations and business units to restore service and improve reliability.
Secondary Functions
- Actively participate in cross‑functional initiatives such as CRM data migration, analytics integration, AI/ML enabled CRM features and enterprise‑wide digital transformation programmes.
- Support ad‑hoc technical assessments, proof‑of‑concepts, business partner engagements, and internal innovation labs to extend platform capability.
- Contribute to the organisation’s Salesforce roadmap, governance frameworks, developer community culture and continuous learning programmes.
- Collaborate with external consultants, partners, ISVs and internal teams to keep the Salesforce environment scalable, secure, performant and aligned with business evolution.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- Advanced proficiency in Apex programming, triggers, classes and logic on the Salesforce platform.
- Hands‑on experience developing Lightning Web Components (LWC), Aura components, Visualforce pages and custom UI solutions.
- Expert in SOQL, SOSL, Salesforce object model, sharing rules, data modelling, schema design, governor limits and large data volumes.
- Strong integration skills: REST, SOAP, Bulk API, Metadata API, Platform Events and middleware connectivity.
- Proficiency with Salesforce development tools and ecosystem: Salesforce DX, VS Code, Git/SVN, Jenkins/Copado, CI/CD pipelines.
- Deep understanding of Salesforce clouds: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, CPQ, Data Cloud and their implementation lifecycles.
- Excellent knowledge of declarative automation tools: Flows, Process Builder, Workflow Rules, Approval Processes and triggers.
- Strong grasp of web technologies: JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Lightning framework, client‑side configuration and performance tuning.
- Experience in agile/Scrum methodologies, sprint delivery, backlog management, technical estimation and team coordination.
- Proven ability to lead architecture decisions, refactor technical debt, optimise system performance and manage Salesforce releases/upgrades.
Soft Skills
- Excellent leadership and mentoring skills – able to guide developers, build team capability, foster accountability and continuous improvement.
- Strong business‑partner orientation – able to translate complex technical concepts into business language and align solutions with strategic goals.
- Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills – confidently present to executive audiences and cross‑functional teams.
- Strategic thinker with the ability to anticipate platform trends, industry changes and proactively shape the Salesforce roadmap.
- Analytical problem‑solver – adept at debugging, performance tuning, root‑cause analysis and implementing high‑quality solutions.
- Adaptable and resilient – thrives in fast‑changing environments, able to lead through ambiguity and shifting business priorities.
- Coaching mindset – committed to developing team members, promoting knowledge sharing, and cultivating a strong developer community.
- Detail oriented and quality‑focused – ensures that code, designs and architectures meet enterprise standards and regulatory/compliance needs.
- Proactive and self‑motivated – takes ownership of delivery outcomes, drives continuous improvement and leads by example.
- Collaborative team player – works effectively across multiple functions, embraces agile culture and builds positive working relationships.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering or a related technical discipline.
Preferred Education:
Master’s degree in a relevant field and/or advanced Salesforce certifications (e.g., Platform Developer II, Integration Architect, Application Architect).
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Computer Science
- Software Engineering
- Information Systems
- Business Technology/CRM
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range:
8+ years of hands‑on Salesforce development experience, and minimum 3‑5 years in a lead or technical leadership role.