r/salesforce

Hello Salesforce community, I am about 3 days away from doing the panel presentation for a Lead SE role at SF. I am not really worried about the demo portion of the presentation because I do that all the time in my current consultant role.

What I am less confident is in those first 15 mins when you're supposed to do discovery again, and I am hoping that those who have done it and gotten an offer or those that have been apart of the panel could share some tips or knowledge that would help.

Thank you in advance anyone who decides to respond!

I'm hoping to get some career coaching from those of you who've been in the Salesforce ecosystem longer than I have.

I'm in my mid-40s and work for a large, well-known company in the U.S. (NC Triangle area). Overall, it's a good place to work. My salary is decent for the area (around $100k), although probably a bit lower than I could make elsewhere because the total compensation package is very strong. We have a 401(k) with a company match, a separately funded company pension, and I'm only required to go into the office once a month—the rest of the time I'm fully remote.

My challenge is career growth.

Over the past several years I've built my career around Salesforce, primarily in Sales Cloud, focusing on UAT leadership, business analysis, requirements refinement, release testing, and partnering with product owners, developers, and business stakeholders to deliver new functionality. I've earned several Agile certifications and am currently working toward expanding my Salesforce certifications.

The problem is that my role seems to be growing horizontally rather than vertically. I continue to take on more responsibility, but there doesn't appear to be a clear path toward becoming a Salesforce Admin, Business Analyst, Product Owner, Solution Engineer, or another role that would deepen my Salesforce expertise. I worry that if I stay too long, my Salesforce skills could plateau.

Part of what makes this decision difficult is my stage of life. If I were 25, I'd probably chase the biggest learning opportunity without thinking twice. But in my mid-40s, stability, retirement benefits, and work-life balance matter a lot more than they used to.

That said...I'd be lying if I said compensation wasn't part of the equation. Going from roughly $100k to $130k–150k over the next few years would absolutely improve my quality of life. I just don't want to sacrifice an outstanding work environment and benefits package for a bigger paycheck if it ends up being the wrong move.

For those of you who've made a similar decision:

• Would you stay where I am or start looking?
• What roles do you think best fit my background?
• What certifications or skills would give me the biggest return on investment?
• Is the jump into the $130k–150k range realistic with my experience, or is there something I'm missing?

I'd really appreciate any advice. I'm trying to think strategically about the next 10–15 years of my career rather than just chasing the next job.

After 2 years of on and off learning i passed my exam thanks to the suggestions here.. since having no experience in the field would really appreciate any suggestions to get started even if its free work for experience. Based in east coast looking for ideas

I swear I spend half my week just chasing people down. management wants to know why our activity dashboards look like an absolute ghost town, and I have to explain for the 100th time that the reps just "forget" to update their records

It's exhausting tbh. We finally got Cloudtalk hooked up a while back so the phone system just pushes the call logs straight to the SF record in the background, and honestly it's the only reason we have any usable metrics on that front right now

But for literally everything else? custom objects, meeting notes, just moving an opp stage when they're supposed to? it is like pulling teeth. they act like I'm asking them to solve a rubiks cube blindfolded. Im just trying to keep the org from turning into a complete dumpster fire before my quarterly review

anyone else just tired of being the bad guy?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently in a bit of a dilemma and would appreciate some advice from people who've been in a similar situation.

I have around 3 years of Salesforce development experience.

I'm interviewing with a product-based company**(Akamai)**, and from what I've learned, the role is likely Software Engineer 1. From what I've seen, many engineers with around 3 years of experience are hired as Software Engineer 2 (or equivalent) at several product companies, so I'm a little concerned about the level.

However, if I receive the offer, they're expected to offer around 18 LPA fixed, which is higher than my other option.

My other offer is:

• Accenture

• Hybrid

• Senior Analyst

• 15.4 LPA Fixed

  ETS (17.5 lpa) Hybrid

So my dilemma is:

• Would you choose a Software Engineer 1 role in a product-based company with 18 LPA fixed, even though the title seems one level lower for someone with 3 years of experience?
• Or would you choose the Senior Analyst role at Accenture because the designation better matches my experience?
• How much does the title matter in the long run compared to compensation, learning opportunities, and future growth?
• If I join as Software Engineer 1, could it negatively impact future job switches, or do recruiters care more about the work and compensation than the title?

My priority is long-term career growth rather than just the designation, but I don't want to make a decision I'll regret later.

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who've faced a similar choice or have experience hiring in product companies.

Thanks!

We reduced our headcount from 30s 20s. Our SF renewal is coming up. Our AE is already threatening discount reductions due to the headcount/license reduction.

Its hard to take salesforce seriously if we cant reduce headcount and reduce price. Any leverage here we can negotiate for better discounts?

If we dont see a price reduction we will consider leaving.

our team still does quite a bit of reporting in Excel even though all the data lives in Salesforce. the part that's starting to get old is having to export Case data every time someone wants updated numbers. i usually end up pulling a bigger dataset than i actually need, then deleting columns, filtering everything down to the right Case record type, and rebuilding the same report over and over. i'm hoping there's a better way to do this.

what i'd like is an Excel workbook that only pulls the fields i actually need, filters to a specific Case record type, and then just lets me hit refresh whenever i need the latest data instead of exporting another CSV.

who work in both Salesforce and Excel a lot, how are you handling this?

are you using Power Query, a Salesforce connector, or something else entirely? mostly looking for something that's been reliable over time rather than just a quick workaround.

I have 3 years of experience as a Salesforce Developer, I am looking for someone who can guide me and prepare me for interviews as I haven't given Salesforce Developer interview before. I have total 8 years of experience along with Salesforce Development and Custom Web Development

Hey folks, my company's doing a booth at Dreamforce this year for the first time (well, we've attended before, but this is our first time actually having a booth). trying to make it not suck lol.

If you've been to Dreamforce (any year, doesn't matter), what actually made you stop at a booth vs just walk past? like was it the swag, the setup, someone actually talking to you instead of just scanning your badge, a game/activity, free coffee, something else entirely?

Also curious if there's any swag you got that wasn't another tote bag or stress ball, something you actually kept and used, instead of the stuff that just went into trash the same day.

And were there booths that felt too salesy where you just avoided them altogether?

Also, let me know if games or activities at booths still work or if that feels kind of old and gimmicky now, and honestly how much swag even matters compared to just having real conversations with people there who actually have clarity on what they want?

I really don't want our booth to be one of those booths people just walk past, so any honest advice helps, even if it's about something that we shouldn't do.

July 6th, over two days for sandboxes. July 20, over 15 days for production.

Way to drop that news at the end of the day before a holiday weekend, guys: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=005321563&language=en\_US&type=1

Any specific tips relevant to studying for and passing this exam?

I have done the trails and it took me a long time. I tried to go slow to absorb. I also bought the FOF practice tests and study guides.

Any other tips for passing this cert? I know its still a fairly newer one, so I am not sure how much material has actually been put out there

We used to spend a good sum of money each year on branded items or gift baskets, which most people didn't want. This year, we abandoned it and instead used digital charity ecards, each of which supported clean water initiatives in underprivileged areas.

I honestly thought there would be less interaction.
received more responses than in any prior year. A few customers inquired about the charity that supported it. According to one, it was the most considerate thing a supplier had ever given them.

I believe that a gesture that truly has meaning has a different impact than a generic present. won't return to the hampers

Hey everyone,

I have around 3 years of experience as a Salesforce Developer, mainly working with Health Cloud, Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, Apex, LWC, Flows, and REST integrations. I'm currently preparing for technical interviews, and I've realized my biggest weakness is live coding.

I know the concepts pretty well, but the moment I have to share my screen and code while someone is watching, my brain just freezes. After the interview, I can usually solve the same problem without much trouble.

For those who've recently interviewed or conduct Salesforce interviews:

- What Apex, Trigger, SOQL, LWC, or integration questions are you seeing most often for someone with ~3 years of experience?

- How did you get comfortable with live coding during interviews?

- Any resources or practice methods that genuinely helped you improve?

I'd really appreciate any advice or experiences. Thanks!

https://preview.redd.it/oxk26ytz41bh1.png?width=808&format=png&auto=webp&s=afe543b2cf206dade2875c0e24acae804440ed42

Hello everyone:
I am developing a screen flow to edit Events, one of the fields should be the [WhatId].
I am using a standard Lookup component, with Object = [Event], Field = [WhatId].
From backend side it's working as expected, I can change the object type, select record and it will successfully assign to the edited record, but when changing the object to something not equal to Account, this error appears.

Has anyone faced the same issue? What could be the possible solution here? Thanks.

lmao just lol, great work SFDC

we're a fairly small team using salesforce, but a surprising amount of our day-to-day work still happens in excel.

our workflow is usually export data, clean it up, make bulk updates or review everything, then import it back into salesforce. it works, but once you're dealing with larger datasets it starts feeling pretty inefficient. we've also had a few cases where someone ended up working from an older export, which just creates extra cleanup later. i've been looking at ways to make the process a bit smoother. i know the native salesforce tools get the job done for a lot of people, but i've also seen quite a few teams mention using excel connectors instead of constantly exporting and importing csv files.

who regularly work in both salesforce and excel, what does your workflow look like these days? are you sticking with the native tools, or did you find another approach that's been worth adopting?

Hi, looking for others to share some recent personal and work wins around the sf ecosystem.

I am in the ecosystem for 10 years so my algo is heavily weighted with salesforce content. Recently / since launch of agentforce, I can’t help notice the pile on. I completely agree with the issues with the company, product, name changing, certification and vision. The list could go on, let’s not go there on this post!!! 😂
That said, I love the ecosystem and I have built a good career for myself and I know 100s of people in the same boat.

Anyway, my ask - to quell the long list of cons, I’m looking for others to share recent good news from working with the platform.

Feel free to shoot wide and high.