Salesforce Architect

Department: Information Technology

Classification: Info Technology Spec 3

Job Category: Classified Staff

Job Type: Full-Time

Work Schedule: Full-time (1.0 FTE, 40 hrs/wk)

Location: Fairfax, VA

Workplace Type: Hybrid Eligible

Pay Band: 06

Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience

Criminal Background Check: Yes

About the Department:

The mission of the Enterprise Applications (EA) department is to plan, implement and maintain integrated central and distributed information systems and associated databases that support the business needs of the university. These systems include the Banner administrative applications (supporting student, finance, admissions, human resources, payroll, financial aid and procurement), Data marts/Business Intelligence (supporting strategic and operational end-user reporting requirements), decentralized systems and web applications (supporting budgeting, sponsored programs activity and other university applications), customer relationship management (CRM) and support for application and data integration.

About the Position:

The Salesforce Architect is a key player and leader in all aspects of the Salesforce platform operations and decision making. Supporting multiple business units, the Salesforce Architect is responsible for leading Salesforce personnel in areas of solution design, administration, and operational items. As a leader of Salesforce development, this role is responsible for ensuring stable and reliable performance of the platform. The Salesforce Architect also advocates change, and creates a clear technology platform and process vision for the team, peers, and partners. This individual should be resourceful, use innovative approaches to solve problems and create value by providing direction, feedback, and coaching to fellow team members. The Salesforce Architect is responsible for building out the Salesforce practice, driving the platform governance and strategy ensuring effective processes and methodologies are in place and owned projects are delivered on time with great quality. Additionally, this individual will share responsibility for ensuring development team output adheres to university policies and is compliant with security and accessibility related standards (W3C, ADA, Section 508, etc).

Responsibilities:

• Leads technical architecture, staff oversight, solution development, project coordination, and needs assessment;
• Effectively collaborates within ITS and with the schools and business unit leaders to create and drive Salesforce strategy, design, and architecture;
• Leads and participates in Salesforce program management including governance, project execution, development and coding, status tracking, monitoring of critical issues and risks, and maintaining ongoing support;
• Leads and assists in hands-on solution design, rapidly building proof-of-concepts and prototypes to evaluate functionality around the Salesforce ecosystem to deliver on key institutional and product objectives;
• Assesses current state processes, pain points, and future needs of applicant and student engagement, and articulates how Salesforce can bridge those gaps;
• Helps set the long-term vision for Salesforce utilization, support tooling and systems, and related internal processes;
• Conducts Solution Architecture reviews with project teams prior to design and development activities and ensures solutions are scalable and aligned with platform roadmap to meet business requirements;
• Continuously assesses new technologies to determine their viability and applicability within the technical ecosystem;
• Participates/facilitates in Salesforce project Scrum calls;
• Coordinates projects and operations with other ITS units including Systems Engineering, Network Operations, EDIS, Customer Services, Desktop Support, IT Security and the Project Management Office;
• Leads and works with Salesforce admins and developers;
• Provides mentorship, training / knowledge transfer and participates in governance and documentation activities;
• Provides supervision and leads/assists other staff in projects and provides training and support as needed;
• Participates as a senior leader within the Salesforce Center of Excellence;
• Leads and mentors team members consisting of administrators, developers, and analysts to develop strong Salesforce practices;
• Keeps abreast of new developments, concepts and techniques related to the core CRM platform and related systems;
• Drives adoption of standards, governance, and Agile best practices. 

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in related field or the equivalent combination of education and experience;
• Considerable experience in a Salesforce Project Lead, Solution Architect, or Lead Development role;
• Some experience managing and administration of Marketing Cloud platforms;
• Hands on experience with SFDC, Lightning, Apex, Visualforce, jQuery, CSS, XML, JSON;
• Exposure to one or more of the following languages/tools/technologies: C#.Net/Razor, PHP, XML, CSS, jQuery, ASP.Net, SQL Server, MySQL, WordPress, Drupal, and other CMS platforms;
• Extensive knowledge of Salesforce architecture and principles of architecting and designing full stack solutions using the Salesforce Platform, components and tools such as Salesforce.com, Lightning, Visualforce, Apex, SOQL, Multi-tier architectures, Education Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, etc.;
• Good understanding of Configuration, Customization & Integration in Salesforce;
• Knowledge of Salesforce Connected App architecture and mechanism;
• Knowledge of Integration with third party products with existing infrastructure (e.g. Informatica, Ethos);
• Knowledge of methods for web services development & consumption: REST/SOAP/SOA/JSON/XML/HTML;
• Considerable understanding of environment management, release management, code versioning best practices, and deployment methodologies in Salesforce;
• Solid understanding of Salesforce Administration requirements;
• Solid knowledge of data modeling principles and their application in Salesforce;
• Considerable understanding of Agile methodology concepts and practices and general project management;
• Knowledge of basic web/cyber security principles and best practices;
• Working knowledge of project management principles;
• Working knowledge of common System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) methodologies;
• Working knowledge of user provisioning and permission set configuration/usage in Salesforce;
• Knowledge and ability to work with Salesforce back and recovery tools such as OwnBackup;
• Knowledge and ability to work with Salesforce code repository and release management tools such as (Flosum, Gearset, Copado, etc.);
• Solid verbal and written communication with the ability to effectively articulate and communicate technical vision, possibilities, and outcomes across all levels in the organization;
• Ability to deliver high quality projects on time, through ability to design architecture, develop high quality code, and coordinate effective unit and system tests;
• Ability to gather/analyze/define functional & technical requirements to determine feasibility and translate into technical design specifications and user stories, and provide detailed system and functional designs;
• Ability and willingness to acquire new knowledge/skills and lead/train/assist staff on projects as needed;
• Possess excellent ability for oral and written communication, presenting, meeting facilitation, negotiation, decision making, and problem-solving;
• Ability to direct/lead and assist in development, system testing, and documentation related activities; and
• Excellent organizational and problem-solving abilities as well as ability to juggle multiple projects and shifting priorities.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Some experience within the Higher Education industry.

Instructions to Applicants: 

For full consideration, applicants must apply for Salesforce Architect at https://jobs.gmu.edu/. Complete and submit the online application to include three professional references with contact information, and provide a Cover Letter/Letter of Intent with Resume for review.

Posting Open Date: May 14, 2025

Posting Close Date: June 4, 2025

Open Until Filled:  No