Expert Applications Architect (Salesforce)

Delta Dental•Oakland, CA

20h•Hybrid

About The Position

This role does not offer visa sponsorship. Candidates must be authorized to work in the U.S. without current or future sponsorship (including CPT, OPT, or H‑1B). This is a hybrid position with an onsite requirement of 1–2 days per week in Oakland, CA. The Expert Applications Architect will be responsible for the design and analysis of software projects, coordination, creation and socialization of the conceptual approach document on strategic business initiatives, documentation standards, system architecture best practices and current system architecture documentation for their respective domain. The position is also responsible for collaborating with partner teams, enterprise architecture and development teams on best practices, guidelines and standards as well as evangelizing Technology transformation initiatives. This position is responsible for providing expertise and direction to Leadership when discussing strategic projects, design and application initiatives as well as providing high level estimates for the purpose of business case creation.

Requirements

8+ years of hands-on Salesforce platform experience, including 3+ years in an architect, lead, or senior solution role, with strong expertise in Apex, Lightning Web Components, Flows, Flow orchestration, and data cloud
Bechelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent technical field
2+ years of experience architecting or leading solutions on Salesforce Data 360 (Data Cloud), including identity resolution, segmentation, and activation
2+ years of experience architecting or leading solutions on Salesforce Marketing Cloud, including Journey Builder and Data 360-driven personalization
1+ year of experience with Agentforce, including AI-assisted workflows and grounded agent design
Good understanding of Salesforce Health Cloud, including Digital Insurance
Demonstrated experience designing sharing and visibility models for large user bases and large data volumes
Deep understanding of Salesforce security model, role hierarchy, sharing rules, restriction rules, permission set groups, and data modeling at enterprise scale
Strong experience designing and consuming APIs and enterprise integrations, including event-driven and asynchronous patterns
Salesforce Certifications (Required): Salesforce Platform Developer I, Salesforce Platform Developer II, Salesforce Administrator Certification, Salesforce Application Architect
Demonstrated ability to make sound architectural decisions across low-code, no-code, and pro-code solutions, and to defend those decisions in writing
Ability to identify key issues and trade-offs and present understandable alternatives to both technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership
Ability to create and maintain technical documentation, ADRs, and reference architectures
Proven ability to effectively present data and architecture trade-offs to facilitate decision-making
Ability to solve complex problems using analytical and creative problem-solving skills
Competent at adhering to organizational processes including scrum ceremonies, design artifacts, and architecture governance
Knowledge of agile development methodologies

Responsibilities

Define and own the application architecture across our Salesforce stack — Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Health Cloud / Digital Insurance, and Data 360 (Data Cloud) - covering data model, sharing and visibility, automation strategy, UI composition, and integration boundaries
Apply strong engineering judgment to select the appropriate no-code, low-code, or pro-code solution to meet functional, performance, scalability, and compliance requirements
Architect and oversee solutions built with Apex, Lightning Web Components (LWC), Flows, Flow Orchestration, and Omni studio where appropriate
Design and govern solutions on Sales Cloud aligned to dental benefits sales, group, and broker workflows
Lead architecture for Health Cloud and Digital Insurance, covering group sale, individual sale, and broker sell channel data models, and the producer/broker portal experiences built on top of them
Architect and implement Data 360 capabilities — Zero Copy integrations, data streams, identity resolution, calculated insights, segmentation, and activation into Marketing Cloud, Health Cloud, and downstream systems
Design and govern Marketing Cloud architecture for member engagement journeys, lifecycle communications, and Data 360-driven personalization
Leverage Agentforce to architect AI-assisted workflows, intelligent case handling, and decision-support agents grounded in Data 360
Design, integrate, and operationalize AI-powered features by working with large language models (LLMs), including OpenAI and Anthropic models (e.g., Opus, Sonnet), to enable conversational interfaces, automation, summarization, and decision-support use cases
Partner with Security, Privacy, and Platform teams to integrate AI services responsibly within Salesforce, with HIPAA, PII, and PHI safeguards designed in from the start
Design and govern integrations using REST/SOAP APIs, Platform Events, Change Data Capture, and enterprise middleware connecting Salesforce to Snowflake, Azure, and other internal systems
Establish and enforce best practices for security, data access, sharing, large data volumes, governor limit management, and performance at enterprise scale
Lead architecture review boards, design discussions, peer code reviews, and release management decisions
Author and maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), reference architectures, and platform standards
Collaborate with Product, Business, Data, and Security leaders to translate strategy into a credible target-state architecture
Mentor engineers and admins, and promote best practices in Salesforce development, design, and platform governance
Support CI/CD pipelines, sandbox topology, branching strategy, and Salesforce DevOps processes