“We need a Salesforce person.” We hear this a lot. It is a bit like saying “we need a doctor”. Helpful, but are we talking GP, surgeon or dentist? 🦷
Salesforce has grown into a whole ecosystem: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Experience Cloud, Data Cloud, MuleSoft, Agentforce and more. Hiring the wrong type of Salesforce professional is one of the most common (and expensive) mistakes we see.
The four roles, in plain English
1. Salesforce Administrator
Best for: keeping the platform healthy. Users, permissions, reports, dashboards, flows, page layouts and small automations.
Look for: Salesforce Administrator certification, strong Flow skills, and someone who actually enjoys talking to users.
2. Salesforce Developer
Best for: custom builds the clicks cannot handle. Apex, Lightning Web Components (LWC), integrations and complex automation.
Look for: Platform Developer I or II, real code samples, unit testing discipline and experience with DevOps tools like Copado or Gearset.
3. Salesforce Consultant or Business Analyst
Best for: translating business needs into Salesforce design. Workshops, requirements, process mapping and configuration.
Look for: cloud-specific consultant certifications and a track record of projects that went live and stayed live.
4. Salesforce Technical or Solution Architect
Best for: multi-cloud programs, data models, integration strategy, security and scale.
Look for: Application or System Architect credentials and someone who can explain trade-offs to an executive without a 40-slide deck.
A quick decision guide
- “Our users hate the system and reports are a mess” → start with an experienced admin
- “We need it to talk to SAP, our website and our data warehouse” → developer plus integration skills (MuleSoft is a bonus)
- “We are rolling out Service Cloud to three business units” → consultant first, then build team
- “We have five clouds, two orgs and a merger” → architect, yesterday
The AI curveball
With Agentforce and Data Cloud, Salesforce has pushed hard into AI agents. That means more demand for people who understand data quality, permissions and prompt design inside the platform. If AI is on your roadmap, test for it in the interview, not after go-live.
Red flags to watch for
- A long list of certifications with very few projects behind them (the “badge collector”)
- Developers who have never written a test class
- Consultants who say yes to everything, including things Salesforce does not do
Contract or permanent?
Rollouts and migrations suit contractors. Ongoing platform ownership suits a permanent admin or developer who will be there next year when the next release lands. Many of our clients do both. Our contractor engagement and permanent placement pages explain how each works.
👉 Not sure which role you need? Tell us about your Salesforce setup and we will help you scope it before you hire.
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