Salesforce Career Options

In this bog post we will talk about what in Salesforce (SFDC) and Salesforce Career options available in Salesforce ecosystem. We will see different career choices you have or different job profiles that are available in Salesforce job market. Also we will cover which Salesforce Career Paths we can take to grow in Salesforce eco-system. Let start our Salesforce career guide.

What is Salesforce(SFDC)?

SFDC stands for Salesforce dot com or Salesforce.com. Salesforce is one of the most popular and powerful Cloud-based CRM systems. Over the years it has evolved and grown into “THE GO-TO…” option for every small, medium, and large-scale industry.

Sales, Service, Field Service, Mobile, Marketing, Net Zero, Non-profit, Education, Philanthropy, Commerce and CPQ. Just name it and they have an OOTB cloud solution in place for immediate deployment – you just have to configure and customize it as per your industry and customer needs.

Let’s deep dive into the various career options and opportunities available for you in this vast ecosystem. If you a new to and Fresher then check How to get a job in Salesforce as a Fresher post to learn about recruiting process.

Career options in Salesforce

To give a quick perspective of various roles and responsibilities in any Salesforce project/program team. Let’s have a look at the below diagram. This is a sample waterfall delivery-based model to showcase various technical and functional roles available in a salesforce program.

Side Note- Waterfall delivery is a methodology- where each of the stages like requirement gathering, design, development, and testing is a milestone and a complete set of requirements for the whole program/project gets delivered as a single entity. We can talk about different methodologies in some other blogs.

Let talk about all different career options and equal opportunity in details.

1. Salesforce Administrator

As a Salesforce Administrator / Admin you hold a very important responsibility to correctly setup the Customer Org, their roles/ responsibilities, Hierarchy in the system. You also setup which login user should see what kind of data- controlling the visibility of the screens, etc. Setting up oauth, managing and setting up dashboarding, reporting and any outbound/inbound communication channel setups, etc.

These days we also see “DevOps” as a separate role for most of the programs where the DevOps person/team is responsible for managing and setting up the process for deploying data into higher environments, check in checkouts of different teams and moving the packages to higher environments like Integration environments (CIT, SIT), UAT, Pre Prod and Production.

Average salary (national): $95.000. Check a Salesforce admin guide to the role, salary and how to earn more.

Salesforce Administrator Career Path

Here is a suggested path for new comer but your journey can be different base on your experience and opportunity.

2. Salesforce Developer

As a Salesforce Developer you are expected to be able to configure as well as customize the application to suit the customer requirements using Apex, flow, triggers, OOTB setups, process builder, LWCs, etc. Salesforce Developer is one of most demanding skill in Salesforce industries. A Salesforce Developer is a programmer who builds Salesforce Application on various PAAS platforms.

Average salary (national): $125,000

Check How to become a Salesforce Developer and hiring process to get job in Salesforce eco-system.

Salesforce Developer Career path

Here is a suggested path for new Salesforce Developer but your journey can be different base on your experience and opportunity.

3. Functional Consultant

Being a consultant means having a “Know How” of the system. Not just following what’s required to be done- but also being able to suggest the processes that are industry best practices. A Salesforce functional consultant is responsible for creating a Functional Design Document for the whole set of requirements for the Salesforce team and being able to suggest process improvements based on Salesforce Best Practices. Check here to learn about 5 Skills Great Salesforce Consultants Have In Common.

4. Tech Specialist

To support the best practices suggested on a process level- we need to have a deeper understanding of how the technology works and that is where the Tech Specialist play an important role. Someone could be managing and expert at the Integration area, someone is great at LWCs, someone is managing the CPQ EPC (product catalogue side of things), etc.- these are just few examples of technical specialization roles in Salesforce.

5. Business Analyst

Right from the requirement capture, running customer workshops, requirement elicitation, interacting with different customer user groups, creating the business requirement document (BRD), capturing the as-is and to-be processes- this all is taken care by a Business Analyst(BA). Check here for Top 7 Skill in a Salesforce Business Analyst checklist.

Average salary (national): $104,000

6. Salesforce Architect

To stitch through all the requirements across project and to be able to suggest the best approach for all the set of requirements an Architect plays a pivotal role. Salesforce Architect is responsible to gather technical and functional details from each of the track tech specialists, BAs and functional consultants to be able to come up with the overall approach of how the requirements will be technically designed and delivered. For any technical blockers- they are the key people on the program.

Average salary (national): $150,000

Check how to Become a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect (CTA).

7. Designer

Similar to the functional consultant role- but Designers work across the streams and systems and have a bigger additional responsibility to be able to see how Salesforce would fit in the overall program ecosystem. They would come up with the overall program level design- functional design that covers the whole program which includes interacting systems, any inbound, outbound communications, APIs, user interactions flows, and how all the technologies/platforms are fitting together in the program.

Average salary (national): $112,000

8. UX Designer

Salesforce UX designer is the one who comes up with the right way of representing customer requirements in the salesforce screens. Its not just about the UI design (how screen looks and just develop those) but to be able to bring in and enhance the customer experience in the system by conducting user interviews, creating system and flow mockups, screen designs, understanding current system usage challenges and bring improvements and coming up with the best experience for your customer.

9. Project Manager

In a traditional project delivery methodology (Waterfall as explained earlier) a Project Manager is the person responsible for managing all these above roles, deliverables, creating an overall delivery plan, manage project risks, challenges, resourcing, etc.

In the agile world (where requirements are split in smaller chunks and delivered) the project manager role is typically replaced by a Product Owner/ Product Manager.

Average salary (national): $90,275

10. Enterprise Architect/ Program Architect

Enterprise Architect/ Program Architect is a crucial role on very high scale implementations who is responsible for any/every interacting systems’ technical and business design.

An enterprise architect works with the representatives (PMs/Architects) from each platform/team (including salesforce teams) and even with the customer stakeholders/business users to understand their requirements and challenges and to see the feasibility and compatibility of the underlying systems and requirements.

11. Program Manager

A program manager sits on the top of this hierarchy. This role cuts across all the teams similar to Enterprise Architect/Program Architect but is responsible for managing the customer teams, vendor teams, delivery teams, testing teams, etc. on an overall program delivery level.

Managing the program schedules, program milestones, and delivery across the teams to adhere to the program goal- program manager is responsible for this e2e. Managing customer stakeholder interactions, reporting to the steering committee, program sponsors, and managing program risks, program budget, etc.

Check Average Salesforce Salary Guide.

Salesforce career paths which you can follow

How can you know which Career path is right for you? Based on the above insights into the different roles, it’s up to your expertise and interest to get into the groove and start picking the roles for your upcoming assignments. If functional side interests you more- then go for BA, Functional Consultant, and Designer kind of roles.

The technical side is your arena and if you love to code- then Tech Specialist, Architect is the right kind of role for you.

You can also check Salesforce Management. If you want to follow the Salesforce Management path then flow below the path.

How to get started in Salesforce

There are standard as well as advanced trailhead courses for Admin, Developer, CPQ, Field Service, etc. Additionally, you also have Trailmixes which are customized learning paths by people in the salesforce ecosystem (called Trailblazers) – that give you real-time and a piece of hands-on knowledge with short exercises/ projects to grow your skill.

1. Trailhead

The only thing you need to get started in Salesforce is to register yourself on “Trailhead” and get started for free! Sign up for a new account and voila! You have a bunch of ways to start exploring any topic/ roles you want to grow in- just search for what you want.

Trailhead quests are an amazing way to earn some great Salesforce goodies to keep yourself motivated and updated. You can also help in the community by answering any questions from fellow trailblazers and can participate in the challenges and get rewarded!

2. Salesforce Community

Also, make sure to associate with your local Salesforce Community group- you get the option to join the group under the “Community” tab on the site. There are multiple events and talks hosted by these communities to get you up to speed on the technical and functional topics, any new trending topics, updates, new releases, platforms, etc.

3. Certifications

Certifications are another important milestone to prove your hands-on expertise- both in the community as well as for your customers. If your organization is a Salesforce Partner- you have an additional set of Partner learning resources available at your disposal- Partner Learning Camp!

4. Partner Portal

It has partner launch event webinars, detailed additional topics shared exclusively for partners, and so on. There are specialized credentials introduced for partners too- Accredited Professional certifications.

5. Apex Hours

Apex Hours is one stop platform to learn Salesforce skills and technology. It has all the tutorials you need to get started with Salesforce.com and become a master in it

Where to learn Salesforce for free

Start learning Salesforce from Trailhead and if you like recording then check the Apex Hours YouTube channel. Check our Free Salesforce Training Series for different topics.

Salesforce careers FAQ’s

What Next

Check below post to learn more about your career path.

• Managing Data Access in Salesforce
• Salesforce Program Manager
• Salesforce Salary Guide in 2023
• Salesforce Product Manager
• Are Salesforce Careers Recession Proof?

Summary

All in all there are ways and means you can top your game with Salesforce! Just dive into it. It time to start your journey to Salesforce career. Start learning Salesforce from Trailhead and Apex hours.