💃 Salesforce Admins - Which Company Setting Has the Highest Salary? 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! Salesforce Admins, or Consultants looking for the gentler road, do you know which work environment you are in 🤔? Do you like what you are in? Do you know what the various company settings are? Do you have a preference out of the bunch? And, which one makes the most money?! 💰

We know industry matters. Today, we go a level deeper 🧐 - the Salesforce Team at your company. This could be a team of 1, or 20. It could be in the tens or a hundred, like it is at huge enterprise SF customers; Toyota and American Express are examples of this.

Shall we identify some of the settings out there, across the spectrum, and provide some insights on how they impact the Salesforce Admin's role? We shall! ✅ 

Agenda for today includes

• Salesforce Admins - Which Company Setting Has the Highest Salary?

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

Salesforce Admins - Which Company Setting Has the Highest Salary?

We have 3 work environments we will get into. Plenty of crossover here, they are not mutually exclusive. For each, we will offer some salary insights 💵. Of course, there will be some big "it depends," and there are environments that will consistently pay more.

1) The Solo Admin

The Lone Ranger is the ideal Salesforce work environment for the resourceful, personable, and accountable Salesforce professional who prefers the life of an individual contributor 🙋🏽. The company they work for is likely a small to middle-market business, so up to $1BB in annual revenue.

This person is the only individual in the company who knows Salesforce well enough to root cause and resolve a permission issue, or create a Flow, or a Custom Report. They may support tens, or low-hundreds of users, and be the only admin 🦸🏽.

They likely report to a Sales Ops manager, or perhaps an executive if it's a smaller company. They are trusted to keep the org running with no support, and to make decisions in the best interest of the business 🤹🏽.

Salary 💰:

• Best Case: $100,000+

• Worst Case: $45,000

• Most Likely Case: $70,000

2) The Salesforce Admin on the IT Team

The Salesforce Admin who is an SME resource on the company's broader technology team is the ideal Salesforce work environment for someone who likes to be part of a team, but still owns the Salesforce org. Their IT team is made up of fellow SMEs - the database admin, the business analyst, the helpdesk person, and the full-stack developer.

This environment will be less accountable 📉 (their manager is more likely to get the good/bad credit when things go right/wrong) and better supported 💪 (via their team and manager).

This is the best of both worlds where you are still an individual contributor, as the only Salesforce resource, but have a like-minded team to lean on. As well, with a larger IT team, there is a carved out IT budget negotiated by a department head who has a vested interest in getting, and paying for, an experienced Salesforce resource 🧙.

Salary 💰:

• Best Case: $100,000+

• Worst Case: $55,000

• Most Likely Case: $80,000

3) The Enterprise SF Admin

The Enterprise Salesforce Admin is one of many Salesforce professionals in the company, along with any combination of other Admins, Developers, Product Owners, Business Analysts and Project Managers, all dedicated to Salesforce ☁️.

The company they work for will be large. And the range of "large" is....large. As reference, here are 2 broad ranges, and how their Salesforce teams may look -

Up to $5BB Revenue- 1 or more Salesforce Admin, Developer, Solutions Architect, Technical Architect, Product Owner, and additional support resources like business analysts, project managers/scrum masters, and junior roles. Additionally, 3rd party Salesforce consultants are embedded in the projects.

Over $5BB Revenue - Multiple Salesforce Product Owners with multiple teams of Salesforce Admins and Developers at their disposal. Additionally, Salesforce consultants are embedded in the team AND there is liberal use of Salesforce contractor roles for staff augmentation.

The enterprise admin will experience the most complex work environment, for better and worse. Better because you are exposed to scale, enterprise SDLC and enterprise integration solutions. Worse because big can often mean slow 🐢. Also, with high headcounts, the roles may be specialized or isolated and even if you are exposed to a lot, your actual work is in a smaller piece of the big thing.

As an enterprise admin, you may be 3-6 layers removed from the department leader who is responsible for the Salesforce org. The more layers, the less decisions you make, and the more orders you take 😅. This will include abiding by strict SDLC processes that may be frustrating if you are used to being a solo admin 😬.

Salary 💰:

• Best Case: $125,000+

• Worst Case: $80,000

• Most Likely Case: $100,000

Summary:

The Enterprise Admin is most likely to make the best salary, but the role is not all sunshine ☀️ and rainbows 🌈. You are a small cog in the big machine.

The Solo Admin needs to be able to support themselves 💪 and make good decisions on their own. Their salary has the lowest floor, but a friendly ceiling.

The Admin on an IT team is that nice balance ⚖️ of paying well, having significant Salesforce responsibilities, and having a team and boss supporting them.

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes