Senior Salesforce Architect

Worldwide Clinical Trials•Carolina, NC

10d•$121,500 - $240,500

About The Position

The Senior Salesforce Architect serves as the enterprise design authority and technical owner for the Salesforce platform and its tightly coupled Certinia ecosystem, responsible for evolving the commercial technology stack to support the Sales, Marketing, and Sales Operations organizations. This role provides architectural leadership across the lead-to-cash and opportunity-to-project lifecycles, ensuring Salesforce solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, and aligned to measurable business outcomes while integrating reliably with the broader enterprise application and data landscape. The Senior Salesforce Architect partners closely with the IT Commercial Business Partner as the primary technology advisor to the Sales Operations team and with the Certinia system team on shared objects, integration patterns, and data flows that span Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Professional Services Automation (PSA), and the enterprise data warehouse. This role owns the multi-year Salesforce roadmap and sets enterprise development standards for Apex, Lightning Web Components, JavaScript, Platform Events, and Flows. It embeds AI-driven capabilities, including Agentforce, Einstein, Data Cloud, and emerging generative AI, into the commercial technology stack while managing the product backlog, overseeing service desk support, and providing direct leadership to a team of administrators and developers. Success in this role requires deep expertise in Salesforce platform architecture, strong working knowledge of Certinia, command of commercial processes, fluency in AI-driven platform capabilities, and the ability to translate complex business challenges into governed, high-impact technology solutions within a complex, global enterprise environment.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive experience in Sales Cloud, including significant time in a dedicated Salesforce architecture role
Hands-on experience implementing AI and automation capabilities on Salesforce, including Agentforce, Einstein, and Data Cloud, with strong understanding of Salesforce release management, sandbox strategy, DevOps tooling, and platform governance
Proven experience leading Salesforce platform teams, including direct management of administrators and developers, and partnering with Sales Operations and commercial leaders to deliver platform capabilities that drive measurable business outcomes
Proven success developing business requirements and delivering technology-based solutions across Sales and Marketing domains, with strong understanding of data governance, master data management, and integration architectures
Experience managing Salesforce service desk operations (SLA definition, ticket triage, continuous improvement), with excellent project management, communication, and executive presentation skills
Advanced Salesforce architect certifications (Application Architect, System Architect, B2B Solution Architect, or Certified Technical Architect (CTA)) strongly preferred
Bachelor's degree in Information Technology (IT), Computer Science, Business, or a related field
Deep understanding of the Salesforce platform architecture, data model, security and sharing models, automation framework, and integration patterns, with strong working knowledge of Certinia PSA and its interplay with Salesforce
Expert-level proficiency in Apex (including asynchronous Apex, batch, queueable, scheduled, and trigger frameworks), Lightning Web Components, JavaScript controllers, SOQL/SOSL, and declarative tools such as Flow
Strong working knowledge of AI and intelligent automation applied to commercial functions, including Agentforce, Einstein, generative AI, Data Cloud, and predictive analytics
Deep understanding of Sales and Marketing processes, including lead management, opportunity management, forecasting, territory management, and marketing automation integration, with proven ability to architect and evolve enterprise CRM platforms in a complex, global environment
Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to translate complex technology concepts into executive-ready language
Strong leadership and people management skills, with a track record of developing teams and delivering measurable outcomes on large, complex, multi-phase Salesforce initiatives
High attention to detail with a strong focus on governance, data quality, controls, and auditability, and comfort operating in a global, matrixed organization with competing priorities and evolving transformation environments

Nice To Haves

Experience in the Contract Research Organization or life sciences industry is preferred

Responsibilities

Serve as the enterprise design authority and lead technical architect for the Salesforce platform, defining the end-to-end technical architecture, governing development standards, and owning the multi-year roadmap aligned to commercial strategy
Partner closely with the Certinia system team on shared objects, data models, integration patterns, and automation to ensure a seamless end-to-end architecture across the opportunity-to-project and quote-to-cash lifecycles, maintaining expert-level understanding of both platforms' data models, security, and governor limits
Work hand-in-hand with Sales Operations and the IT Commercial Business Partner, translating commercial priorities into actionable platform solutions, and develop documented business requirements by partnering with Sales, Marketing, and Sales Operations leaders to convert business challenges into clearly defined technology solutions
Maintain a deep understanding of Sales and Marketing processes, including lead-to-opportunity management, pipeline management, forecasting, territory and quota management, and campaign execution to ensure effective architecture and system design
Lead the design and adoption of AI capabilities on the platform, including Agentforce agents, Einstein (Sales, Service, Predictive, and Generative), Prompt Builder, and Data Cloud, ensuring use cases are governed, explainable, and aligned with measurable business value
Continuously evolve the product in alignment with Salesforce seasonal releases, evaluating new features, managing release readiness including deprecation planning, sandbox strategy, and DevOps tooling, and own the Salesforce product backlog including intake, prioritization, and sprint planning across Sales, Marketing, and Sales Operations
Oversee Salesforce service desk operations, ensuring timely resolution of incidents and service requests, defining service-level agreements (SLAs) and triage standards, and driving continuous improvement in user experience and platform stability
Govern and enforce Salesforce best practices, coding standards, and reusable design patterns, including integrations in and out of Salesforce and in alignment with Certinia
Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions for AppExchange solutions and custom development (Apex, Lightning Web Components (LWC), and Flow), with a preference for proven, configurable solutions and a clear rationale where custom builds deliver differentiated capability
Partner with enterprise architecture, integration, security, and data teams to ensure all Salesforce solutions adhere to architectural standards, data protection, master data management, and compliance requirements
Lead stakeholder communications, executive updates, and steering committee forums, translating technical strategy into business-ready language; define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) and benefit realization metrics, including release velocity, adoption, data integrity, and total cost of ownership (TCO)
Provide day-to-day leadership, coaching, and mentoring for direct reports, including Salesforce administrators and developers, fostering technical depth, certification growth, and career development
Perform other duties as assigned. The duties and responsibilities listed above are representative of the nature and level of work assigned and are not necessarily all-inclusive.