Technical Lead, Salesforce & Architecture

We're looking for the most versatile technologist on our team, and someone who makes everyone around them better. You'll be our go-to expert on Salesforce and a coach and mentor to our consultants and developers. You know the declarative platform inside and out, and you can write code when configuration isn't enough. You also have the range to work across everything else our clients depend on, comfortably designing a data pipeline, wiring up an integration, or figuring out where AI fits (responsibly) in a client's systems.

You'll take a leading role on our enterprise architecture work: looking at all of a client's systems, deciding what belongs where, and designing solutions that will still work well in five years. When a problem doesn't have an obvious answer, you're who the team turns to. In a typical week, you might map out how a client's donation platform, email tool, and finance system should connect, build a complex Flow, prototype an AI workflow on top of their donor data, and help a teammate debug a SQL query. Our clients use these systems to raise money and get resources to communities, so getting systems and processes right matters to the people they serve.

You're curious and pragmatic. You like untangling messy systems and finding the simplest design that works, ideally one the client's own team can run long after we've left. And when a client asks for something that won't serve them, you'll say so, kindly and clearly.

This Job Isn't for You If

• You'd rather go deep in one specialty than move between configuration, code, integrations, and architecture in the same week.
• You want to spend your career exclusively in Salesforce. Most of our work starts there, but it rarely ends there.
• You see questions from teammates as interruptions rather than part of the job.
• You want someone else to make the big design decisions while you build them.
• You'd pick a clever solution over a simple one a client can maintain.
• You're looking for a large company with layers of process, dedicated QA teams, and one long-running project.
• The mission doesn't matter much to you, as long as the tech is interesting.

About Purple Otter

Purple Otter is a boutique Salesforce and modern data stack consultancy serving enterprise nonprofits, foundations, and grantmakers. We help mission-driven organizations design and run the systems behind their fundraising, grants management, and programs. That work spans Salesforce implementation and managed services, data and analytics, and a growing AI practice. Our team is small and senior, and our clients rely on us for both sound technical judgment and solid execution.

What You'll Do

• Lead the technical approach on our most complex engagements, from discovery and design through build and handoff.
• Design Salesforce solutions that last. Choose the right tool for each problem (Flow, configuration, Apex, or LWC) and explain the trade-offs in plain terms.
• Lead enterprise architecture work: assessments of a client's full set of systems, integration strategy, data models, and target-state roadmaps.
• Build hands-on when it counts, including complex automation, data and security models, and custom code where it's warranted.
• Design and oversee integrations between Salesforce and the other tools clients rely on, like payment processors, advocacy and email platforms, finance systems, and data warehouses.
• Mentor our consultants and developers. Review designs and code, help shape our technical standards, and be the person teammates call when they're stuck.
• Work directly with client staff at every level, from IT leaders to program teams, and turn what they need into designs they can understand.
• Help shape proposals by assessing feasibility, estimating effort, and sketching solution approaches.

What You'll Need

Must-Haves

• Significant hands-on Salesforce experience (usually 6 or more years), including technical lead or architect responsibility on multiple implementations.
• Expert declarative skills: Flow, data modelling, the security and sharing model, and reporting.
• Working proficiency in Apex and Lightning Web Components, and good judgment about when code is the right answer and when it isn't.
• A solid grounding in solution architecture: data model design, governor limits and scale, integration patterns (APIs, platform events, middleware), and managing technical debt.
• Experience with Salesforce DevOps and release management.
• Experience with nonprofit or grantmaking platforms (Nonprofit Cloud, NPSP, or similar), or past work with nonprofits, foundations, or grantmakers.
• Real, hands-on experience beyond Salesforce in at least one or two other areas, such as integration platforms, data warehouses and data pipelines, cloud services, or AI. We don't mind which ones; we care that you've built things outside the platform and enjoy learning new ones.
• The ability to lead technical conversations with senior client stakeholders and write architecture decisions down clearly.
• Comfort working across several client engagements at once.

Nice-to-Haves

• Integration platforms such as MuleSoft, Boomi, or Workato.
• Common Salesforce add-ons: FormAssembly or Formstack, Conga or Nintex DocGen, DocuSign, Data Loader and Workbench.
• Data work: SQL, ETL/ELT tools, and warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks.
• Microsoft Azure, especially Azure Data Factory.
• AI and LLM architecture, such as building with Anthropic's Claude models and API, Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations, retrieval and grounding patterns, or AI solutions built on CRM data. Agentforce familiarity helps too.
• Experience Cloud (portals, community sites, external sharing) or Marketing Cloud (journeys, segmentation, integration with core Salesforce data).
• Certifications from Salesforce, Anthropic, or Microsoft, such as Application, System, or Data Architect; Platform Developer I/II; Claude Certified Architect or Developer; or Azure Solutions Architect Expert.

What You'll Get

Compensation:

• Above-market pay: $150,000 - $165,000.
• A collective profit-share.
• Health and wellness benefits.
• Retirement contribution match.
• Certifications and ongoing learning.

Culture

• A fully remote team of people who like each other.
• Work from wherever you do your best work (as long as it includes EST business hours overlap)
• Unpoliced personal days.
• Flex time, and four weeks of vacation people actually take.

Who We Want to Hear From

Tech consulting is still mostly men. More than half of our team are women, and part of the reason is how we work. Remote work doesn't fix the fact that women still do most unpaid care work. But it means no one here has to choose between that care and their job. Race is where we have the most work to do, though it's not the only place. Our team doesn't yet reflect the communities our clients serve, and we know that affects what we notice and what we miss.

If you're Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour, disabled, queer or trans, or you've ever been the only one like you on a tech team, we'd especially like to hear from you.

If you have a disability or anything else that means our process should work differently for you, like an interview format or the timing, tell us and we'll work it out with you. You don't need to share a diagnosis, just what would help.