Software Solutions Architect - Salesforce

Title: Software Solution Architect

Location: Lansing, Michigan

Job Description Job Summary

The Salesforce Application Architect is responsible for leading the design, development, and implementation of enterprise-grade Salesforce solutions supporting critical Child Welfare and State Hospital systems. These systems require high availability, scalability, and compliance with state and federal standards.

The architect will ensure architectural integrity, platform optimization, and alignment with strategic and operational goals. This includes transitioning legacy systems to a modern Salesforce-based platform, with a focus on Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, and Field Service Lightning (FSL).

Job Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end architecture and technical design of Salesforce solutions supporting case management, field service operations, and user engagement.
• Conduct org health checks and platform assessments and provide actionable recommendations based on Salesforce best practices.
• Participate in Design & Discovery sessions and promote adoption of Salesforce's Well-Architected Framework.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to development teams.
• Collaborate with business analysts, product owners, and stakeholders to translate complex business requirements into scalable, maintainable Salesforce solutions.
• Oversee proof-of-concepts (POCs) to validate technical feasibility and business value.
• Ensure secure application development lifecycle (SADLC) practices are followed throughout development and deployment.
• Set the technical direction for Child Welfare applications.
• Support 24/7 operations of Tier 2 applications serving over 8,000 users across state and private agencies.
• Ensure compliance with security, performance, and regulatory standards.

Primary Duties (80%)

Serve as the development specialist responsible for the design, development, testing, and documentation of technical software solutions. Solve system design problems and programming issues and ensure solutions are integrated and enhanced to meet business needs.

• Lead development of software applications, server components, and services using various development tools and supported technologies.
• Plan and coordinate integration of systems within the business area, external partners, agencies, and hosting platforms.
• Design and implement application security that complies with organizational policies.
• Lead and direct impact analysis of changes due to legislation, requests, or changes in governmental and business processes.
• Review and approve presentation materials for technical review meetings, approval sessions, and application demonstrations.
• Ensure technical design strategies and applications adhere to organizational policies, standards, and guidelines.
• Review and approve system engineering methodology and other required technical deliverables.

Primary Duties (15%)

Provide technical leadership to the application development team, agency, and external groups.

• Work with teams and product owners to refine SADLC, prioritize Agile backlogs, and maintain release readiness and schedules.
• Ensure compliance with ECM standards and procedures across development, system testing, user acceptance testing, security, and production environments.
• Coordinate, create, approve, and monitor required work items.
• Make technical recommendations and decisions for application changes based on user requirements.
• Solve complex system design and programming problems while ensuring high security for client-level data.
• Plan coordination, development, testing, and integration of systems and data.

Primary Duties (5%)

Research and evaluate relevant technology as it pertains to the business strategy.

• Maintain thorough, up-to-date knowledge of programming techniques used in software development.
• Recommend configuration management tool best practices.
• Identify, share, and recommend improvements to tools and technology for development teams and technical support staff.

Required Education

• Bachelor's Degree

Required Skills

• 5+ years of experience gathering and analyzing business and technical requirements in collaboration with stakeholders.
• Experience designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines, including pipeline-as-code, branching strategies, automated code reviews, and testing aligned with organizational goals.
• Strong ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• 2 3 Salesforce certifications required.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with Salesforce, SQL, Java, and web services development.

Most Preferred Skills

• Salesforce Architect certification.
• Experience working on enterprise-level implementations.
• Database-related certifications.

Other Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience working within Agile development environments.
• Strong experience with Oracle SQL development, including query execution and performance tuning.
• Experience working with DevOps practices, including automated builds, regression/smoke testing, and multi-environment deployments.
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex system issues and provide technical guidance and leadership to development teams.

Primary Skills

Salesforce, Salesforce Architecture, Salesforce Development, SQL, Java, Web Services, CI/CD, Application Architecture, Enterprise Application Development

Secondary Skills

Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, Field Service Lightning (FSL), Salesforce Well-Architected Framework, Agile, DevOps, Oracle SQL, Database Development, Pipeline-as-Code, Automated Testing, Secure Application Development, SADLC, Technical Leadership, System Integration, POCs, Application Performance, Technical Documentation