Principal Salesforce Platform Engineer

University of Texas at Austin•Austin, TX

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Principal Salesforce Platform Engineer serves as the enterprise‑level technical authority and platform owner for the organization’s Salesforce ecosystem. This role provides strategic direction, architectural leadership, and governance for a multi‑cloud, mission-critical Salesforce environment supporting healthcare development operations, outreach, engagement, and enterprise relationship management. The Principal Platform Engineer defines the long‑term platform strategy, leads complex cross‑functional initiatives, oversees platform governance, and ensures the system meets scalability, integration, compliance, and performance requirements across a large, highly regulated health system. Operating with broad autonomy, this role collaborates with executives, senior IT leadership, information security, data governance, clinical operations, and vendor partners to translate complex organizational needs into enterprise‑grade Salesforce capabilities. The Principal Salesforce Platform Engineer shapes platform architecture, drives modernization and optimization efforts, and mentors technical staff to elevate internal capability. This role ensures that Salesforce supports institutional strategy, delivers measurable business value, and remains secure, reliable, and aligned with HIPAA and industry best practices.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field.
8 years of progressively responsible experience administering, engineering, or architecting Salesforce solutions.
4 years leading complex Salesforce platform initiatives, architectural design, or enterprise‑level governance.
Demonstrated experience designing enterprise data models, security frameworks, and integration strategies.
Experience working within regulated environments (e.g., healthcare, nonprofit, public sector).

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Information Systems, Business Administration, Health Informatics, or related field.
Salesforce certifications such as: Advanced Administrator, Platform App Builder, Platform Developer I, Architect‑track certifications, or Health Cloud accreditation.
Experience leading Salesforce platform strategy in large healthcare systems or comparable complex organizations.
Experience supervising technical teams or providing enterprise‑level architectural oversight.
Experience supporting Salesforce in healthcare development or nonprofit organizations.
LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS OR CERTIFICATIONS Preferred: Salesforce Advanced Administrator Salesforce Platform App Builder Salesforce Platform Developer I (or equivalent proficiency) Salesforce Architect‑track certifications (Application Architect, System Architect) PMP, PMI‑ACP, SAFe, or Certified ScrumMaster

Responsibilities

Enterprise Salesforce Architecture & Secure Configuration Leadership Architects enterprise‑level Salesforce solutions, including data model design, sharing/security strategy, integration patterns, and automation frameworks that comply with HIPAA, regulatory standards, and organizational governance.
Leads and oversees complex org‑wide configuration, ensuring scalable permissions, metadata architecture, and controls; defines enterprise guardrails for declarative and programmatic development.
Establishes and governs environment and release architecture, including CI/CD strategies, automation pathways, integration sequencing, and environment lifecycle management.
Sets enterprise standards for configuration, naming conventions, metadata organization, and documentation to support long-term maintainability and audit readiness.
Enterprise Platform Ownership & Strategic Roadmap Leadership Owns and drives the multi‑year Salesforce strategic roadmap, aligning platform evolution with enterprise objectives, digital transformation efforts, and operational priorities.
Evaluates and approves enterprise platform enhancements, AppExchange strategy, architectural changes, and transformational capabilities (e.g., automation modernization, workflow redesign, integration expansions).
Oversees platform performance, reliability, and risk posture, ensuring SLAs, monitoring strategies, and forward-looking capacity planning are established and executed.
Leads enterprise platform governance, chairing steering or working groups, prioritizing competing demands, and ensuring alignment with cybersecurity and compliance standards.
Data Governance, Analytics Integration & Enterprise Reporting Strategy Establishes enterprise standards for Salesforce data governance, data quality, stewardship practices, PHI/PII protections, and lifecycle management.
Defines and governs KPI reporting strategy, ensuring dashboards and analytics derived from Salesforce support decision‑making at executive and operational levels.
Collaborates with enterprise data, analytics, and MDM teams to ensure Salesforce data models, pipelines, and integrations align with broader data governance, BI architecture, and interoperability standards.
Enterprise Technical Leadership, Mentorship & Cross‑Functional Alignment Serves as the highest‑level technical advisor for Salesforce decisions, guiding senior leadership, project teams, developers, and administrators across the enterprise.
Provides architectural oversight for cross‑system integrations, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and data governance requirements.
Mentors Senior and mid‑level engineers/administrators, elevating capabilities, establishing career pathways, and providing guidance on complex technical decisions.
Influences stakeholders across clinical, operational, and administrative units, aligning platform strategy and system dependencies across the organization.
Enterprise Change Enablement, Risk Mitigation & Executive‑Level Escalation Support Oversees enterprise change‑enablement strategy for Salesforce, ensuring communication, readiness, and adoption of new features across hundreds of users and multiple functions.
Leads technical risk assessments, coordinating with information security and compliance teams to proactively identify vulnerabilities, change risks, and required controls.
Serves as Tier‑3 escalation authority, resolving the most complex problems involving integrations, scalability, performance, and security.
Approves and governs phased rollouts, ensuring risk‑appropriate deployment sequencing and rollback strategies.
Marginal or Periodic Functions: Oversees strategic vendor partnerships (platform, integration, consulting partners); negotiates technical components of contracts, advising leadership on vendor selection and lifecycle decisions.
Leads enterprise audit and compliance activities related to Salesforce security, access, PHI handling, and documentation readiness.
Supports executive decision‑making by providing platform assessments, capability analyses, and investment recommendations.
Participates in enterprise architecture committees, cross-domain governance bodies, and long-term roadmap planning sessions.
Guides major incident response activities, including root-cause analysis, corrective action planning, and communication to senior leadership.