Becoming a Salesforce.com Technical Architect

Becoming a Salesforce.com Technical Architect

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  Becoming a Salesforce.com Technical Architect
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  What is it? •The Salesforce.com Certified Technical Architect program is designed for technical architects who want to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and capabilities to assessing customer architecture; designing secure, high-performance technical solutions on the Force.com platform; communicating technical solutions and design tradeoffs effectively to business stakeholders; and providing a delivery framework that ensures quality and success.
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  Put another way
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  By the numbers* •Around 45 TA’s worldwide – From zero about 2 years ago • 6 in Australia – 5 at Salesforce.com – Me *As far as I know
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  What are thesteps? • 3 parts – Self assessment (Online, Free) – Multiple choice exam (Proctored, $500) – Review Board presentation (Presentation/Discussion, $6000)
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  Candidate background… (From Salesforce.com’s Study Guide) • 5+ years of implementation experience, including development, across the full software development lifecycle • 2+ years of experience in an architect role • 1+ years of experience with Force.com as a technical lead • Experience with other development platforms, preferably .net, java, and ruby • General experience with real-time integration; experience with integration on the Force.com platform • Experience with multiple, complex, and at least one large Salesforce implementation project involving multiple releases, change management process, and/or multi-locale deployment • Understanding of best practices and design trade-offs, with the ability to communicate design choices • Experience with multiple, and at least one object-oriented, development patterns/principles • Awareness of mobile solutions and considerations • Awareness of data migration considerations, design trade-offs, and common ETL tools • Awareness of common third-party solution providers for Salesforce • Experience designing test plans and evaluating effectiveness • Experience with lifecycle methodologies • Participation in knowledge sharing and mentorship • Proven success with projects involving the skills and technologies above, with a portfolio of references to speak for the work • Knowledge of internet and cloud architecture paradigms
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  My Formal Preparation •Self assessment – None • Multiple choice exam – ~24 hours reviewing Salesforce documentation • Review Board presentation – 2 x ½ day group workshops at Salesforce offices – 1x 1:1 coaching with Salesforce – 1 x dry walk through with Salesforce.com staff – 40+ hours self study – 2 x Sleepless nights.
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  Also • ~16 yearsof Software Development/Integration/Project Management • 2 years project experience with Salesforce technology • Other certifications – Developer Certification (Pre-requisite) – Advanced Developer – Admin – Advanced Admin – Sales Cloud Consultant – Service Cloud Consultant
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  My Timeline • 25October 2011 – Passed Self Assessment • 8 July 2012 – Passed Multiple Choice • 29 October 2012 – Cleared 5/7 competency areas, invited back for abbreviated session • 28 January 2013 – Passed Review Board, Granted Certification
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  The Review Board My Review Board was in Sydney via Video Conference with San Francisco About 4-5 people were ‘Judging’ Start Time End Time Session 6.00 AM 6.05 AM Check-In 6.05 AM 7.20 AM Hypothetical Scenario Prep 7.20 AM 7.30 AM Break 7.30 AM 8.00 AM Hypothetical Scenario Presentation 8.00 AM 8.30 AM Hypothetical Scenario Q&A 8.30 AM 8.45 AM Break 8.45 AM 9.15 AM Case Study Presentation 9.15 AM 10 AM Case Study Q&A
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  What was hard •The Hypothetical – 7-8 pages of requirements – 1 hour 20 minutes to design and present • The Uncertainty – Knowing (really knowing) all the areas they could ask you questions on. – Knowing if my Case Study was going to be ‘big enough’ – Was I hitting the right mix of pragmatism and Architectural theory? • The reputation of the Review Board – 4-5 people who probably know more than you know • Waiting for the results – 1-4 week wait.
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  In Summary It’s notan certification that’s about cramming facts or the giving the right canned answer…. …It’s about being able to get up in front of a Salesforce.com customer and deal with all their project needs at an Enterprise Architecture level
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  Questions?