Lead Salesforce Developer

Salary: £70,000 - £84,000 per annum

Employment type: Permanent

Hours per week: 37

Reporting into: Head of Customer Systems

Department: IT

Click here to read the full job description and view our excellent benefits here

This role operates primarily on a remote working arrangement that will require monthly attendance at one of our UK sties for team meetings. Our remote working model arrangements are a non-contractual benefit which could change at any point during your employment, so for this reason an Arden work location is added to our employment contracts.

About Arden University:

We are an aspirational and multi-award-winning university, delivering rapid growth with ambitious plans to disrupt the HE sector through our passion for innovation and digital education. Our vision is to become the first-choice university for career-focused lifelong learners worldwide, ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access higher education.

There has never been a more exciting time to join Arden University, as we expand into new disciplines, forge worldwide partnerships, and expand our locations.

About our Department:

The Lead Salesforce Developer sits within our Technology Department that is crucial to making sure our employees and students can work effectively, deliver projects, find the right solutions and ensure we develop the technology that will make the biggest difference.

Our IT team is made up of around 65 employees with a vast range of skills from Software Development to IT Operations and Security.

Our IT Department values employee development and we have lots of great examples of employee progression and promotions within the team.

About the Opportunity:

As our Lead Salesforce Developer, you'll play a pivotal role in shaping and evolving one of the University's most important business platforms, leading the technical development of solutions that support our ambitious digital transformation programme.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Salesforce developer who enjoys combining hands-on technical delivery with technical leadership. You'll lead the design, development, and optimisation of Salesforce solutions, ensuring they are secure, scalable, and aligned with best practice. Working across the full development lifecycle, you'll help deliver innovative capabilities that drive business efficiency and enhance the user experience.

You'll work closely with architects, product owners, business stakeholders, and the wider Business Systems team to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions. As the technical lead for the platform, you'll establish development standards, guide architectural decisions, mentor fellow developers, and champion modern development practices across the Salesforce ecosystem.

The role also offers the opportunity to influence the University's long-term Salesforce strategy, leading on integrations, DevOps, data architecture, and platform governance to ensure our Salesforce estate continues to evolve in line with organisational priorities..

About You:

If you're passionate about Salesforce development, thrive on solving complex technical challenges, and want to lead the delivery of enterprise-scale solutions in a collaborative and purpose-driven environment, we'd love to hear from you

Essential requirements:

• Significant hands-on Salesforce development expertise, with Salesforce Platform Developer I certification or equivalent capability.

• 7+ years of Salesforce development experience,

• Extensive knowledge of Salesforce architecture, platform capabilities, and development best practices.

• Designing and delivering scalable, enterprise-level Salesforce solutions.

• Strong understanding of Salesforce architecture layers, including data, security, automation, and integration.

• Designing complex integration solutions using REST/SOAP APIs and enterprise integration patterns.

• DevOps and CI/CD practices, using tools such as Copado, Gearset, Bitbucket, or similar.

• Building and managing release management processes and deployment pipelines.

• Implementing secure data models, enterprise security frameworks, and information governance principles.

• Working with large datasets and data migration strategies.

• Establishing development standards, coding best practices, and platform governance.

• Leading technical design workshops and producing high-level solution designs.

• Influencing technical roadmaps in collaboration with senior stakeholders.

• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to engage technical and non-technical audiences.

• Mentoring, coaching, and leading developers to promote technical excellence and continuous improvement.

Desirable requirements:

• Salesforce Platform App Builder or Platform Administrator certification.

• Salesforce Platform Developer II certification.

• Salesforce Sales Cloud and/or Service Cloud Consultant certification.

• Salesforce Application Architect and/or System Architect certification.

• Knowledge of Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud.

• Technical leadership within a Salesforce development team.

• Implementing Salesforce governance and platform management frameworks.

• Middleware and enterprise integration platforms.

• Higher Education sector knowledge, including student recruitment, marketing, student records, student experience, and commercial operations.

• Understanding of GDPR and data protection requirements.

• Awareness of digital transformation strategies and technology trends within Higher Education.

Why Arden:

At Arden, you will become a part of a passionate and dedicated team who are committed to removing unnecessary barriers to learning and making education more accessible. Our people work hard to ensure our students journeys are the best they can possibly be, as such we want to reward our people with fantastic benefits. Employees benefit from:

• 30 days holiday + bank holidays on-top, and even a Christmas closure!

• A generous Aviva pension plan, company contributions starting from 7%

• BUPA Cash Plan

• Private Medical Insurance coverage (applies to certain job roles)

• Access to Perkbox benefits

• Study any Arden course for free, with a discount for all family and friends

• Plus, other excellent benefits

• Our ‘Golden Ticket’ which allows you to gift anyone in your life a free Arden education
  

Our Values:

Stand out, Progressive, Accessible, Resourceful, Kindness, reflect who we are as an institution, a team and as individuals. If they also reflect you and you are excited by the chance to be the driving, creative force within a growing business, we want to hear from you.

There has never been a more exciting time to join Arden University, as we expand into new disciplines and locations.

Closing Date: 20th July

We reserve the right to close this vacancy before the specified closing date should we receive sufficient applications or in order to respond to business needs. In order to avoid missing an opportunity to apply please submit your application as early as possible.

If you are a current Arden student or have an upcoming course with us, you are not eligible to apply for Student Experience roles due to a conflict of interest related to system access.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion:

Arden University is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. This means that if you have a disability, as defined by the Disability Equality Act 2010, you may be guaranteed an interview if you meet the essential criteria for the role.

If you wish to be considered under this scheme, you can indicate via the application form below. By doing so, you are also consenting for this information to be shared with the hiring team. For more details on what qualifies as a disability under the Disability Equality Act 2010, please refer to the guidance here.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. Therefore, we make sure that our recruitment and selection processes never discriminate based upon people's age, disability, gender, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances, and actively welcome applications from all groups.

Sponsorship statement:

Unfortunately we can't sponsor skilled worker visas for this role.