The unstoppable force breaks into the Salesforce industry!

David’s note: If you have doubts you can break into this industry and achieve MASSIVE success & happiness, this story is for you! Bravo Rupesh for achieving so much at your age! I hope I stole some of your greatness meeting you – Amazon is lucky to have ya!

P.S. you have a beautiful family Rupesh!

Here is my story on how I got my first Architect certification in Salesforce:

I came into the United States, just like another ordinary student with the hope of making it big someday. I badly dreamt about leading a Manhattan like lifestyle as I used to stay in New York for a while.

As a student, when I used to commute to my university I could see people nicely suited up attending their daily meetings/conferences over the phone while they are walking on the streets of New York City. I was struck by this deeply and can hear my heart say that “Why don’t you live like this, just for a day ? “. These people over here are not running after money but they are completely loving what they are doing and are enjoying it whole-heartedly.

Every single day until I graduated I told myself, Its not about making money but its about loving what you do the most and what gives you happiness.

Finally the Day came, I graduated with a Masters Degree while I was 22 years old. I don’t know what the world or job market awaits for a 22 year old when I step out of my student life.

Luckily I was greeted with welcoming hands and within 13 days after I graduated, I got a job all the way in the west coast. I was speechless, with no prior Multi National Company experience just with my skill set, a company offered me a job all the way in the West Coast. This was no smaller company too and were truly setting a mark in the entire United States.

First Day at Work​

My first day of work was awesome, I was welcomed by my whole team and assigned a desk that had my name tag attached to it, was given my ID and any outsider who’d like to meet me had to wait at the reception for a few mins until I go out. Wow ! That was good feeling by the way.

Even though I was not doing Salesforce or hardcore development I was happy with what I was doing and my team was happy with the way I was performing. One day my eyes fell on a giant team that had 14 members in it. They were a mix of Admins and Developers. Whenever this team used to walk by our side everyone would say, it’s the Salesforce Team, Salesforce Team !

Few Members of our SFDC Team​

Salesforce, hmmm…. What the heck is that ? So if we learn Salesforce can I lead a Manhattan like lifestyle in San Francisco ? The New Yorker in me was badly craving for it. I started researching about Salesforce and started to think how its used in our company and how our company was benefited by this technology.

I couldn’t do this alone, needed some help here. Why not I get hold of some one from the Salesforce team itself ? I asked a guy internally from the Salesforce team who can teach me Salesforce. At first they told me that they were busy. That is when I asked them, don’t teach me anything I’d just sit beside you for two hours a day and would observe what you guys are doing. The gentleman agreed politely and my routine started. Everyday I used to sit 2 hours a day with one of the senior admins and see what he’s doing then do my daily duties before I go home. At the end of 3 weeks, I understood what Salesforce is completely and what needs to be done to master it.

The A- Team Members

Thankful to the Admins from the internal team. My thirst was never ending and I started to prepare for certifications in Salesforce still doing my daily duties/responsibilities which is outside of Salesforce. It was tough to sail on two ships at the same time but you never say never and nothing is impossible.

I finished two certifications including an advanced one. I was then give the opportunity to work on Salesforce as an Admin. Hell yeah !!! Something that I never thought of. I was happy with what I was doing and after a while I wanted to taste some development too. Started studying for some more certifications. Its easy to understand the concepts when you are working on the platform that too in a very large org. Before my 2nd year Anniversary with the Company that gave me my first Job Offer I had 5 Salesforce Certifications and became a developer by then.

When you have the hunger to win and energy to excel, no stones hurled at you would stop you.
You just come back stronger. By then, I applied for a new position at Amazon. The interview process over there was completely different from what I experienced previously. But I can see where my career was going. I cleared the interview and was the first Dev resource in a growing team inside of Amazon.

Amazonian Life​

The culture inside of Amazon was a bit different, but I was given an opportunity to prove which I did. The beauty of technology is that, the more you use it, the more you ace it.

Pluralsight helped me massively in my quest to learn Salesforce. I took David’s coaching lessons which helped me in easily understanding the concepts of development with which I was struggling initially. Even today, I still have an active Pluralsight subscription and couldn’t let go of it.

The path for me was laid by tech nerds such as David Liu, Dan Appleman, Scott Lee and many more. I just traveled in it.

David, I couldn’t forget the day we met. I heard you say, “I love what I do” in one of your courses when I started to learn Salesforce and fast forward to Dreamforce 2017 we were having a technical challenges discussion that night. Thank you again for your contribution to the Salesforce Eco-System.

With The Man – David Liu​

After a year into my new Company, I did 5 major releases and finally got my first Architect level certification on the 22nd February 2018. It took me more than 2.5 years and the boy who started his career knowing nothing about Salesforce merely, at the age of 22 has became a Certified Application Architect and a System Architect at the age of 25.

All of this wouldn’t be possible with my family’s support especially, my Mom. They are the pillars of my success and the confidence they gave me whenever I felt down was instrumental in shaping my career especially when you come from a Giant Traditional Indian Joint Family !

My Mom​

Yes, What you saw was right ! This is my Family.

I sincerely thank my previous/present Manager’s, Colleagues/Teammates and everyone who has helped me in my journey towards salesforce. Thank you, Thank you and Thank you all for your support.

Rupesh Balaji’s Certifications

Best Wishes,
Rupesh Balaji

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