Principal Salesforce Developer

Position Summary:

The Principal Salesforce Developer will play a pivotal role in driving the success of Ventura Foods’ Salesforce Cloud initiatives across Service, Sales, and Marketing. This role is responsible not only for leading the implementation, operations, and ongoing optimization of the Salesforce platform, but also for ensuring seamless integration with critical business functions to enable growth, efficiency, and superior customer experiences.

As a principal salesforce developer, you will be a technical lead, acting as both architect and hands-on developer, shaping scalable and innovative Salesforce solutions that advance our sales, marketing, and service capabilities. You will partner closely with vendor implementation teams to validate and guide solution design, while also mentoring internal developers to elevate technical excellence within the team. In this role, you will collaborate with business stakeholders and IT leaders to translate business needs into robust, efficient, and user-friendly Salesforce solutions, ensuring the platform continuously delivers measurable business value.

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

Solution Architecture & Development

• Architect and develop end-to-end Salesforce solutions across Sales, Service, and Marketing Cloud to support business objectives.
• Build custom applications and integrations using Apex, Lightning Web Components (LWC), Visualforce, and APIs.
• Customize and configure Salesforce features, including Case Management, Knowledge Base, Omni-Channel, Service Console, Campaigns, Leads, Opportunities, Accounts, Contacts, CTI integrations, and AI-enabled tools.

Business Engagement & Requirements Translation

• Partner with cross-functional teams (Commercial, Sales, Business and Technical Analysts) to understand business requirements.
• Translate complex business needs into technical solutions aligned with Salesforce best practices.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to design user-centric features and optimize workflows.

Platform Operations & Optimization

• Oversee platform administration, optimization, stability, and operational maintenance.
• Manage licenses, monitor system health, and ensure scalability of the Salesforce platform.
• Continuously enhance platform performance and user experience through proactive improvements.

Technical Leadership & Governance

• Lead, mentor, and guide a team of Salesforce developers and administrators.
• Provide technical direction, establish coding standards, perform peer reviews, and ensure architectural alignment.
• Define and manage build, deployment, and release strategies. Support automation in activities like Build & QA.
• Govern internal team deliverables and monitor vendor/partner implementations.

Documentation, Compliance & Data Governance

• Develop and maintain Architecture diagrams, solution designs, workflows, technical documentation, and training materials.
• Enforce data governance policies and ensure compliance with security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field (required).
• Proven experience with Salesforce implementations in the Manufacturing vertical, including at least one full-cycle implementation of Sales Cloud or Service Cloud.
• 7-9+ years of Salesforce product knowledge with a strong understanding of platform capabilities.
• 7+ years of hands-on Salesforce development experience (Flows, Apex, Lightning, SOQL, APIs, and Java).
• 5+ years of Salesforce Administration experience across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, including deep expertise in object models, metadata, configurations, license management, user setup, security (roles, profiles, OWD, permissions, sharing rules), and platform governance. 
• Salesforce Certified Administrator (Required)
• Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I & II (Required)
• Salesforce Certified Application Architect or Technical Architect (Required)
• Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant or Sales Cloud Consultant (Preferred)
• Strong release management expertise, with familiarity in Salesforce DX, GIT, Azure DevOps (VSTS), and Visual Studio Code.
• Experience managing source code repositories, including branching and merging strategies (GitHub experience preferred).
• Hands-on experience with ANT and change set deployments.
   

Knowledge and Skills:

• Advanced hands-on expertise in Salesforce design, development, and configuration, including (but not limited to): Lightning Web Components (LWC), Apex, Visualforce, Workflows, Process Builder, Flows, Assignment Rules, Omni-Channel setup, Chatbots, AI Agents, Approval Processes, Fields, Page Layouts, Record Types, Dynamic Layouts, Custom Apps, Quick Actions, Custom Settings, Mobile Administration, Dashboards, and Reports.
• Proven experience in systems integration, leveraging API's, Mulesoft solutions, managed packages, and ETL tools to connect Salesforce with external platforms.
• Demonstrated success in leading and delivering full lifecycle Salesforce projects, from requirements gathering through deployment and ongoing optimization in Service & Sales modules.
• Exposure to ERP integrations, particularly with Oracle and JD Edwards, and ability to design solutions that align CRM and ERP workflows.
• Strong capability to stay ahead of platform innovations, proactively evaluating, piloting, and advocating new Salesforce features and technologies to meet evolving business needs.
• Knowledge and practical experience with Agile, SAFe, or other modern delivery frameworks, and proficiency with project management tools such as Jira.
• Leadership and collaboration skills, with a proven ability to influence & guide cross-functional teams, and drive consensus towards successful delivery.
• Strong communication abilities, both written and verbal, with the capability to engage effectively with executives, business stakeholders, and technical teams alike.