Top 5 highest paying Salesforce jobs in 2021
5 min
Apart from disrupting business and technology, the “Salesforce effect” is changing existing professions and creating new ones. By 2024, It’s projected that the Salesforce ecosystem will employ, directly or indirectly, almost 4,2 million people. As Cloud-based software keeps gaining popularity, Salesforce continues to accelerate its growth, market dominance and positioning as the undisputed leader in SaaS.
With the increased deployment of Salesforce and new tools being added constantly to their suite of products, the demand for talent worldwide is at an all-time high. Salaries are now very attractive and competitive, making it a top choice for many as their career path.
What separates the best from the rest?
Helping companies bridge the gap between them and their customers involves more than just good technology, so it might come as no surprise that that’s precisely what Salesforce highest paying jobs involve: robust Salesforce skills paired with a business-savvy mindset.
What career path should I pursue?
When looking to kickstart your career in Salesforce, you might want to consider your background and areas of interest to determine whether you want to pursue a highly technical role like a developer of the Salesforce platform, or a slightly less technical role like being a Salesforce Admin or a functional consultant.
Transferable skills can be very helpful, but after some time, you’ll find Salesforce offers a wide range of career path choices for each individual, with the ability to transition to new positions quickly as new skills are developed and certifications completed.
The following table ranks the average yearly income of the top 5 highest paying technical jobs within the Salesforce ecosystem in the US in 2021, so you can understand what positions are valued the most and hopefully provide insight into what is required to land these attractive positions.
1. DevOps engineer ($175,000)
The Salesforce DevOps specialist role has continuously gained notoriety, primarily due to the positive impact they have on time-to-market and value-delivery rates for growing teams and more complex organizations. They are in charge of making the release process as smooth as possible. They help optimize the development lifecycle, unifying and delivering the best value with the least disruption to users by managing deployment, backups, test automations, and code scanning tools.
Although there are no official Salesforce DevOps certifications available yet, Trailhead offers a DevOps module that might come in handy and there are diverse DevOps training certifications available ranging between $150 - $300 dollars. DevOps are required to be both highly skilled in technical intricacies as well as interpersonal relationship-building skills. Regular requirements for this position include an average of 6 years of engineering experience, with at least 3 years of managing or working directly in software development, IT operations and Quality Assurance. Experience in agile methodologies and having Salesforce certifications will definitely help you land this position.
2. Salesforce Technical Architect ($170,200)
Certified Technical Architects are still relatively rare to find within the Salesforce ecosystem. Software architects that leverage Salesforce have a powerful ability to design and manage optimal CRM integrations with other systems while taking care of security and integrity, data management, performance, and scalability of technical solutions. It comes as no surprise they are consistently ranked between the highest paying jobs within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Being a Salesforce technical architect requires the combination of highly sophisticated technical skills with soft skills such as effective communication, project management, and customer oriented mindset.
- Not to mention, technical skills looked for in a Certified Technical Architect include:
- Salesforce object-oriented development
- Knowledge of web applications
- Databases and program languages
- System architecture
- API integration
- Application design
- Supporting BAU processes
- Data Management
- Extraction Transformation and Loading (ETL).
The path to becoming a Salesforce Architect looks like this:
3. Salesforce Technical Consultant ($166,700)
While it’s no secret that Salesforce Technical Consultants are among the best-paid in this list, what stands out in the 2021 surveys is the opportunity for functional consultants in Ireland. The following chart shows the highest average paying Salesforce jobs in different countries (in US dollars to enable direct comparisons).
Technical Consultants make a considerable difference in complex projects that require deep technical knowledge. They develop great expertise to provide recommendations and support to clients turning requirements into action items, and ultimately delivering more valuable solutions. Given the nature of this job, a college degree or even more advanced degrees, like a Masters degree, in computer science related fields might be required. Still, common job description requirements list bachelor’s degrees, 3-5 years of Salesforce consulting experience, having more than one Advanced Salesforce certification, and robust implementation and configuration skills.
4. Salesforce development manager ($158,050)
Development managers work side by side with product owners; understanding business needs to define the development backlog. They lead programmers, technical support, and operations teams towards achieving project milestones while adhering to the best development practices.
For these roles, recruiters will typically look for a scrum master with approximately 2-3 years of experience managing a Salesforce development team and capable of supervising the design and development of applications.
- Roles
- B2C Commerce Developer
- Industries CPQ Developer
- JavaScript Developer I
- Marketing Cloud Developer
- OmniStudio Developer
- Platform App Builder
- Platform Developer I
- Platform Developer II
5. Salesforce Functional Consultant ($144,650)
Functional Consultants are responsible for understanding business needs thoroughly and providing expert planning for custom implementation and training. This role involves defining the optimal requirements, integrations, and customizations, bridging the gap between business problems and technical solutions.
When it comes to resume, Salesforce Consultants need to demonstrate around 3 years of consulting experience in design and implementation of innovative solutions using Salesforce and are expected to hold Salesforce Consultant certifications. Soft skills are crucial to become a Functional Consultant; they need to be problem solvers, effective communicators, and flexible stakeholder managers.
- Salesforce Consultant certifications:
- Experience Cloud Consultant
- Education Cloud Consultant
- Tableau CRM & Einstein Discovery Consultant
- Field Service Consultant
- Marketing Cloud Consultant
- Nonprofit Cloud Consultant
- OmniStudio Consultant
- Pardot Consultant
- Sales Cloud Consultant
- Service Cloud Consultant
Sales driven Jobs:
Sales driven roles commonly have a hybrid salary structure, combining a base and variable salary with commissions based on performance. If you don’t plan on developing technical skills and rather prefer to stick to sales you might want to consider roles at Salesforce or Salesforce AppExchange Partners like ISVs or Consultants. *Data presented were retrieved from various verified sources such as Indeed, Zippia, Mason Frank salary survey and Payscale.
*Data presented were retrieved from various verified sources such as Indeed, Zippia, Mason Frank salary survey and Payscale.
