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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Salesforce Solutions Architect

💰 $ - $

SalesforceArchitectureCRMITCloud

🎯 Role Definition

A Salesforce Solutions Architect is a senior technical leader responsible for designing scalable, secure, and maintainable Salesforce solutions that align with business strategy. This role leads end-to-end solution design across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, CPQ and Billing, integrates Salesforce with downstream systems, establishes platform governance and best practices, and guides development teams through architecture decisions, integrations, data migration, and release management. The ideal candidate is a proven architect with deep Salesforce platform expertise (Apex, Lightning Web Components, Salesforce APIs), strong integration experience (REST/SOAP, MuleSoft or other middleware), and excellent stakeholder management skills.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Salesforce Developer / Lead Developer
  • Salesforce Technical Consultant or Principal Consultant
  • CRM Solution Lead / Business Systems Analyst with deep Salesforce exposure

Advancement To:

  • Enterprise Architect / Cloud Architect
  • Head of Platform / Director of Engineering or CTO (for smaller organizations)
  • Salesforce Practice Lead / Principal Solutions Architect

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Owner / Product Manager (CRM products)
  • Delivery Manager / Program Manager for CRM transformation

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead and own solution architecture for large-scale Salesforce programs, producing end-to-end blueprints that include data model design, integration patterns, security architecture, scalability considerations, and non-functional requirements to meet performance SLAs.
  • Conduct discovery and technical requirements workshops with business stakeholders, translate business requirements into detailed technical designs, and validate that proposed solutions map to business outcomes and KPIs.
  • Architect integrations between Salesforce and ERP, marketing automation, analytics, legacy systems, and third-party SaaS platforms using middleware such as MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, or custom REST/SOAP solutions; define message formats, retry policies, and error-handling strategies.
  • Design and enforce a robust Salesforce data architecture and master data strategy (data model, record ownership, sharing model, data archiving and retention, deduplication rules) to support scalable CRM operations and reporting.
  • Drive technical decisions on Salesforce product selection and configuration (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, CPQ, Billing, Marketing Cloud), providing build vs. buy analysis and commercial/vendor evaluation where necessary.
  • Define coding standards, component libraries, and best practices for Lightning Web Components (LWC), Apex, Visualforce (where applicable), and declarative automation to maintain code quality and platform stability.
  • Create and maintain architecture artifacts: solution architecture diagrams, sequence diagrams, component catalog, integration matrices, interface contracts, and technical specification documents for development, QA, and operations teams.
  • Provide technical leadership and mentoring to Salesforce development teams and partners, perform design and code reviews, and ensure adherence to secure coding practices and platform governor limits.
  • Establish CI/CD pipelines and release management processes for Salesforce (Salesforce DX, Git, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or other tooling), manage sandbox strategies and promote automation for deployments and testing.
  • Define and implement security architecture for Salesforce including role and profile strategy, permission sets, sharing rules, field-level security, identity and access management (SSO, OAuth, SAML), and compliance with data protection requirements (GDPR, CCPA).
  • Lead prototype and proof-of-concept efforts to validate technical approaches, demonstrate feasibility to stakeholders, and reduce implementation risk on new Salesforce features or integrations.
  • Plan and oversee complex data migrations to Salesforce (ETL processes, mapping, data cleansing, historical data loads, reconciliation), coordinating with data engineers and business owners to preserve data integrity.
  • Collaborate with product owners, business analysts, UX designers, and QA to ensure user stories, acceptance criteria, test plans, and user journeys are consistent with the architecture and performance requirements.
  • Define operational runbooks and support models for production Salesforce instances, including monitoring, incident management, performance tuning, and operational handover to support teams.
  • Provide technical input and estimates for RFPs, SOWs, and pre-sales pursuits; participate in client presentations, roadmap discussions, and pricing scenarios to align solution scope with customer expectations.
  • Implement governance frameworks and platform roadmaps that control org sprawl, manage managed packages, AppExchange adoption, environment strategy, and technical debt reduction.
  • Work with IT and security teams to conduct architecture risk assessments, threat modeling, and ensure compliance with organizational policies and regulatory requirements.
  • Optimize system performance and scalability by profiling queries (SOQL), indexing strategies, asynchronous processing (Queueable, Batch, Platform Events), and caching where appropriate.
  • Manage vendor and partner relationships for third-party applications, integration platforms, and consulting partners; evaluate package suitability and guide procurement decisions.
  • Drive change management and enablement programs: produce architecture training, run workshops for admins and developers, and create documentation to ensure sustainable knowledge transfer.
  • Coordinate multi-geography or multi-business unit implementations, designing tenant strategies, multi-org vs single-org trade-offs, and ensuring localization, multi-currency, and multi-language requirements are supported.
  • Lead incident post-mortems and continuous improvement initiatives, documenting lessons learned and updating architectural standards to prevent repeat issues.
  • Ensure that analytics and reporting requirements are embedded into solution designs, enabling reliable reporting via standard Salesforce reports, dashboards, Tableau CRM, or external BI systems.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in vendor/partner selection by contributing technical evaluation criteria and architecture fit assessments.
  • Provide ongoing technical advisory during BAU support and platform enhancement cycles.
  • Help define environment and sandbox refresh strategies to support development and testing lifecycles.
  • Participate in security reviews and compliance audits as they relate to Salesforce and connected systems.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Salesforce Architecture & Design: experience designing enterprise Salesforce solutions across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, CPQ, and Billing with an enterprise-grade architecture mindset.
  • Apex & Lightning Development: deep hands-on knowledge of Apex, Lightning Web Components (LWC), Visualforce, asynchronous processing (Batch, Queueable, Future), and platform governor limits.
  • Salesforce Integration Patterns: strong experience with REST/SOAP APIs, Platform Events, Streaming API, middleware platforms (MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, Informatica), and event-driven architectures.
  • Data Migration & ETL: expertise in data mapping, cleansing, ETL tools (Informatica, Talend, Jitterbit, Mulesoft DataWeave), and best practices for large-scale data migration into Salesforce.
  • Salesforce DX & DevOps: proficiency with Salesforce DX, source-driven development, Git branching strategies, CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation tools.
  • Security & Identity: knowledge of SSO (SAML, OAuth), federated identity, permission and sharing models, field-level security, and compliance frameworks (GDPR, SOC2).
  • CPQ & Billing: hands-on or architectural experience delivering Salesforce CPQ and Billing implementations, product rules, pricing strategies, and quote-to-cash flows.
  • Integration Testing & QA: define automated test strategies (Apex tests, integration tests, regression suites) and ensure high test coverage and release quality.
  • Performance & Scalability: skills in query profiling (SOQL), indexing, selective filters, and designing for high-volume data and API throughput.
  • Reporting & Analytics: experience designing analytics solutions within Salesforce and integrating with BI platforms (Tableau, Tableau CRM / Einstein Analytics).
  • Platform Governance & Roadmaps: ability to establish governance, app lifecycle management, managed package strategies, and drive platform roadmaps.
  • Cloud & Dev Tools: familiarity with Heroku, AWS (when used with Salesforce), Docker, and general cloud architecture patterns is a plus.
  • Salesforce Certifications (preferred): Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA), Application Architect, System Architect, Platform Developer, Sales/Service Cloud Consultant, Integration Architect.

Soft Skills

  • Strong stakeholder management and executive-level communication skills; able to translate technical trade-offs into business terms.
  • Leadership and mentorship: experience leading cross-functional teams, guiding developers, admins, and consultants.
  • Problem-solving and analytical thinking: pragmatic approach to complex architecture problems with focus on outcomes and risk mitigation.
  • Strategic mindset: ability to align platform decisions to long-term business strategy and commercial goals.
  • Negotiation and vendor management: evaluate and influence third-party vendors and partners.
  • Project and time management: effectively prioritize work across multiple concurrent initiatives.
  • Collaboration and facilitation: skilled in running workshops, discovery sessions, and architectural review boards.
  • Customer-centric orientation: focus on user experience, adoption, and measurable business impact.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: keep current with Salesforce releases, roadmap, and ecosystem innovations.
  • Documentation and knowledge transfer: produce clear architecture artifacts, runbooks, and enablement materials.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Business Information Systems, or related discipline (or equivalent professional experience).

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration (MBA) or related fields is a plus.
  • Continuous professional education through Salesforce Trailhead and architecture bootcamps.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems / Technology
  • Software Engineering
  • Business Administration (with focus on information systems)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 7–12+ years in IT roles with progressive responsibility; typically 4–6 years of hands-on Salesforce implementation experience and 2–4 years in a solutions or technical architect capacity.

Preferred:

  • Demonstrated track record of leading multiple full lifecycle Salesforce implementations at enterprise scale.
  • Strong mix of technical delivery experience, pre-sales/solution consulting, and platform governance.
  • Salesforce certifications such as CTA, Application Architect, System Architect, Integration Architect, Platform Developer, or Sales/Service Cloud Consultant strongly preferred.
  • Experience working with distributed teams, global rollouts, or multi-org strategies.
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