Platform Engineering Lead at African Leadership University (ALU)

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Salesforce-Led Platform Architecture

• Lead the architecture, development and administration of ALU’s Salesforce platform across domains.
• Design and govern integrations between Salesforce and AWS, Oracle NetSuite, BambooHR and other platforms.
• Define and document data models, integration patterns and API standards involving Salesforce.
• Ensure architectural decisions are practical, scalable and aligned with institutional needs.
• Balance scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency in architectural and implementation decisions.

Hands-on Development & Salesforce Administration

• Remain an active technical contributor through Salesforce development (Apex, LWC, integrations) and configuration.
• Oversee and, where required, perform Salesforce administration including security models, roles, permissions and environment management.
• Review code and configurations to ensure quality, performance and alignment with architectural standards.

Enterprise Integration & Cloud Architecture

• Design scalable, modular integration architectures using APIs, event-driven patterns or microservices where appropriate.
• Optimise and secure cloud and integration infrastructure, particularly within AWS.
• Ensure integrations are resilient, observable and well documented in production.
• Ensure appropriate monitoring, logging and observability are in place across integrations and platforms to support operational stability and incident response.

Engineering Standards, Governance & Documentation

Establish and enforce technical standards across Salesforce and integrated platforms, including:

• async processing and integration patterns
• error handling and resilience approaches
• naming conventions and data ownership
• documentation and architectural decision records
• Define where technical knowledge is captured and how it is maintained over time.
• Influence and continuously improve delivery models across teams and vendors, ensuring work moves predictably from design through to production.

DevOps, Version Control & Release Discipline

• Define and own the version control and Git strategy across Salesforce and integrated platforms.
• Establish CI/CD pipelines and release management practices, ensuring environment parity across development, QA and production.
• Ensure traceability, controlled releases and rollback strategies across vendors and teams.

Vendor & Technical Leadership

• Act as the technical authority across internal teams and external delivery partners.
• Review vendor designs and deliveries, challenge assumptions and enforce architectural standards.
• Mentor engineers and product teams, raising the overall technical and architectural bar.

Responsible Use of AI in Engineering

• Use AI tools to accelerate development, improve code reviews, enforce standards and support documentation.
• Contribute to a structured, responsible approach to AI use within engineering workflows.

REQUIREMENTS

Essential

• 9+ years of experience in Salesforce platform engineering, enterprise architecture or technical leadership roles.
• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field
• Deep, hands-on Salesforce development and administration experience.
• Proven full-stack development experience and operation at Lead Architect, Technical Architect or Principal Engineer level.
• Strong experience integrating Salesforce with enterprise systems such as ERP, HR and cloud platforms.
• Solid understanding of Salesforce data models, security architecture and performance constraints.
• Experience designing integration and cloud architectures across AWS or similar environments.
• Hands-on experience in API design, CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure management, with version control and collaboration using Git and Jira.
• Proficiency in setting up and managing secure, scalable development environments and automation pipelines.
• Strong grasp of software architecture, including monolith-to-microservice transitions.
• Experience working with and holding external vendors to account.