Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Developer

🎯 Role Definition

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud Developer is a technical specialist responsible for designing, building and maintaining advanced marketing automation solutions within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) ecosystem. This role works closely with marketing teams, data engineers, CRM architects and business stakeholders to deliver scalable campaigns, integrations, data models and personalized customer journeys. The ideal candidate brings deep coding skills, robust data and API expertise, cloud platform knowledge and a strategic mindset to optimize marketing operations and drive measurable business outcomes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Salesforce Developer (Sales/Service Cloud) with marketing interest
Marketing Automation Engineer or Specialist
CRM Integrations Developer

Advancement To:

Senior SFMC Developer / Lead Marketing Cloud Architect
Manager of Marketing Automation & CRM Platforms
Director of Digital Marketing Technology or Head of MarTech Engineering

Lateral Moves:

Marketing Cloud Consultant / Solutions Architect
Data & Integration Engineer (focused on CRM/MarTech stack)
Platform Engineer – Marketing Data & Personalization

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Design, develop and deploy complex solutions in Salesforce Marketing Cloud including Journey Builder, Automation Studio, Email Studio, Mobile Studio and Contact Builder to support omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Architect and build integrations between Marketing Cloud and CRM, CDP, data warehouse or other enterprise systems using REST/SOAP APIs, Marketing Cloud Connect, middleware or SFTP.
Develop advanced audience segmentation queries, data extensions, SQL scripts, SSJS, AMPscript and scripting logic to personalize messaging and flows for large scale campaigns.
Collaborate with marketers, data analysts and business stakeholders to gather requirements, define technical specifications, map data flows and translate business goals into technical design.
Monitor and optimize performance of marketing automations, track metrics such as deliverability, open/click rates, data latency, and continuously improve processes and solutions.
Prepare and manage technical documentation, code reviews, unit testing, deployment plans, version control and maintain best‑practice standards in a fast‑paced agile environment.
Stay current with updates to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, new features, industry trends and integrate those into the platform to drive innovation and competitive advantage.
Ensure data governance, security, compliance and privacy standards are upheld in campaign development, audience management and integrations (e.g., consent management, international regulations).
Troubleshoot issues in production—campaign failures, API exceptions, data mismatches, tracking errors—and work with cross‑functional teams to diagnose root cause and implement corrective actions.
Assist in the migration or transformation of legacy marketing systems and data into Salesforce Marketing Cloud, ensuring data integrity, reliability and scalability.
Develop and optimise dynamic email and landing page templates using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AMPscript and other front‑end technologies to deliver rich user experiences.
Manage user permissions, business unit setups, process automation, approval workflows and platform architecture to support enterprise‑scale Marketing Cloud deployments.
Partner with analytics and BI teams to deliver reporting dashboards, dashboards and insights on campaign effectiveness, customer journeys and marketing ROI.
Mentor junior developers, share best practices, contribute to internal training, and help raise the technical capability of the wider marketing‑tech team.
Participate in agile ceremonies, backlog grooming, sprint planning and collaborate across cross‑functional teams (marketing, data, operations, IT) to deliver enhancements.
Perform code and configuration deployments via CI/CD pipelines or release management processes to support rapid time‑to‑market of marketing features.
Validate data models, run stress tests, ensure scalability and performance under high campaign loads and large subscriber volumes.
Manage continuous improvement initiatives by assessing platform health, technical debt, automation process effectiveness and recommending improvements for future state.
Work closely with customer service or operations teams to ensure subscriber data accuracy, preference centre functionality, unsubscribes and deliverability issues are handled proactively.
Serve as evangelist for the Marketing Cloud platform within the business—promote usage, share innovations, gather feedback and advocate for best‑practice adoption across marketing operations.

Secondary Functions

Support ad‑hoc data requests such as segmentation reports, audience exports, campaign performance snapshots, and exploratory analysis of campaign data.
Contribute to the marketing technology roadmap by recommending new integrations, feature enhancements, or automation flows to streamline marketing operations.
Collaborate with data engineering and CRM teams to translate marketing requirements into technical requirements for ETL, CDP or data‑warehouse workflows.
Participate in release planning, platform health reviews, dev‑ops hand‑over, and cross‑team knowledge sharing sessions.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expertise with Salesforce Marketing Cloud features: Journey Builder, Automation Studio, Email Studio, Mobile Studio, Contact Builder.
Strong proficiency in SQL, SSJS, AMPscript and scripting for automation, personalization and data manipulation.
Experience with REST, SOAP or Bulk APIs to integrate Marketing Cloud with CRM, CDP, analytics or other external systems.
Proficient in HTML, CSS, JavaScript (or front‑end coding) for email templates, landing pages, CloudPages and dynamic content.
Solid knowledge of data models, data extensions, segmentation, audiences, import/export, tracking data and data flows within Marketing Cloud.
Familiarity with Git, version control, CI/CD, Agile methodologies, Jira/Confluence and release management practices.
Strong understanding of marketing automation best practices, email deliverability, sender reputation and campaign optimisation.
Ability to manage and manipulate large datasets, perform SQL query optimisation, and build dynamic segmentation logic.
Experience with integrating Marketing Cloud with other Salesforce clouds (Sales, Service, Data Cloud) and other marketing platforms.
Capability to design scalable solutions, build re‑usable components, reference architectures and promote platform governance.

Soft Skills

Excellent communication (written and verbal) – able to translate technical concepts to marketers and business stakeholders.
Strong analytical and problem‐solving mindset – capable of diagnosing platform issues, performance bottlenecks and presenting solutions.
Collaborative and team‑oriented – works across marketing, data, CRM and operations teams to deliver integrated solutions.
Self‑motivated and proactive – able to work in a fast‑paced, dynamic environment with changing priorities.
Detail‑orientated and quality‑driven – ensures accuracy in code, data flows, reporting and documentation.
Strategic thinker – aligns technical implementation with business goals and marketing objectives.
Adaptable and resilient – thrives in changing environments, new features, platform upgrades and evolving marketing needs.
Coaching and mentoring – able to support less experienced team members and build technical capability within the team.
Time‑management and prioritisation – manages multiple projects, delivery deadlines and stakeholder expectations.
Learning‑oriented – continuously updates knowledge of SFMC, marketing technology, cloud integrations and best practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, Marketing Technology or a related technical discipline.
Preferred Education:
Bachelor’s degree with Salesforce Certifications (e.g., Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Developer, Administrator or Consultant) or Master’s in Business Analytics / Marketing Technology.
Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Information Systems / Data Engineering
Marketing Technology / Digital Marketing
Business Analytics / Data Science
Marketing Automation / CRM Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
3‑5 years of experience in Salesforce Marketing Cloud development, marketing automation, integration or CRM technical roles.
Preferred:
5+ years of hands‑on experience building end‑to‑end SFMC solutions, with certifications, enterprise‑scale integrations, marketing data architecture, and performance optimisation track record.