How to prepare for a Salesforce industry emergency

Times like these get you to think – how prepared are you for the inevitable crash of our industry?

Oracle, IBM, HP – these companies were once the “Salesforces” of their generation. But every great company has a rise and a fall. And Salesforce is no exception.

Make no mistake, the Salesforce industry will decline during your career. It’ll happen as quickly as how Salesforce hit Oracle. And once you realize the decline is here, it’s already too late to prepare.

You need to be ready for an industry shift starting today. Here are my recommendations:

Salesforce Administrators

Admins will likely struggle the most during the transition:

• An admin’s hard skills are generally not transferrable: process builder, sharing rules, etc.
• Soft skills, an admin’s specialty, are found in professionals of all industries
• Admins are the majority of the industry, increasing the amount of competition

That said, it’s certainly not a doomed career path. Here’s what I’d do to prepare:

• Actively go towards the management path. Read management books, manage up, etc.
• Become a consultant to double down on your soft skills
• Learn more hard skills like coding, AI, SQL, etc.

Salesforce Developers

Developers have the strongest career security of the main Salesforce paths during a transition:

• Coding skills translate across all programming languages
• There is a worldwide shortage of programmers
• Developers make good money and have larger safety nets

Nothing is guaranteed though. Developers still need to prepare for the worst:

• Learn programming fundamentals such as design patterns
• Double down on Javascript skills as you build more in the Lightning framework
• Spend extra time understanding integration architecture end to end

Technical Architects

Technical architects are also well positioned to overcome industry shifts:

• An architect’s skillset already includes many non-Salesforce technologies
• Enterprise systems are resistant to change and prefer proven technology
• Architects command massive paychecks and have larger safety nets
• Lesser hands-on skills may hurt your job prospects

Technical architects too should prepare for industry changes:

• Expand your skills by working on larger and larger deployments
• Follow the CTA path as not all architect job titles are equal
• Get your hands dirty with technology too!

No matter how secure you think your job is, we all need to plan for the long-term.

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst!
David