If navigating the AI era has taught us anything within the tech space, it is that replaceability is a real threat for any role, even if you have historically been considered invaluable. This means that even Salesforce Architects, who are considered by many as the pinnacle of Salesforce skill, run the risk of becoming an understudy to artificial intelligence.
However, like with many other Salesforce roles, this does not mean that an AI model will take your job tomorrow, and there are areas you can upskill in from today that can help keep you employed in this new era. Here are some of our top recommendations.
The Salesforce Architect Landscape
Salesforce Architects are arguably a split group when it comes to job experiences. Highly revered, exceptionally knowledgeable, and often ecosystem veterans, architects do not come as a one-size-fits-all. There are 16 different Salesforce Architect certifications on Trailhead, and countless job listings for all different types of architects – some of which do not fall into one specific category.
This means that architects will naturally experience the market differently, as our latest Architect Survey found. Last year’s data showed that nearly 76% of respondents are satisfied with their careers, yet almost 38% are considering leaving the architect role within two years. They may currently be satisfied, but they also aren’t shying away from jumping ship to the next best opportunity.
Data from 10K’s 2025 Salesforce Talent Ecosystem Report highlighted that Salesforce Technical Architects – many of whom will have obtained the well-debated CTA certification – make up only 1% of the total ecosystem. This is very different from other Salesforce roles, which are facing saturation, and emphasises the disparity between architects with a very specific role and the less traditional architect.
The ‘typical architect’ is becoming less common as the role and its background broaden, meaning that architects increasingly span disciplines from security to integration to enterprise data strategy.
The job hunting experience has not been easy for architects either, despite the fact that technical architects saw the highest growth in demand last year. This is a trend that seemingly spans the whole ecosystem, including senior professionals, with some calling the current market “brutal” and “bleak”.
Creating the Future-Proof Architect
The last few years have been a continuous period of learning for Salesforce Architects, with many feeling confident in areas such as problem-solving, solution design, and attention to detail. However, according to our data, only 20.8% of architects are looking ahead to where they believe the market is going, with 54.7% stating they base their focus on the requirements of their current role. Perhaps most interestingly, only 3.8% said they follow Salesforce’s announced direction.
With the job market as difficult to navigate as it currently is, these admissions make sense. For many architects, doing their job, ensuring job security, and staying up to date will be the most important parts of the role. Future-proofing isn’t necessarily at the forefront of their minds, but Salesforce has been hinting that it really should be.
At this year’s Irish Dreamin’ event, Miriam McCabe, Salesforce’s Senior Director of Architect Evangelism, and Lilith Van Biesen, the Principal Architect Evangelist at Salesforce, explained that all Salesforce Architects should strive to future-proof themselves. This means becoming an architect who is “inherently human and applies their transferable human skills” – something particularly pertinent in the AI era.
A future-proofed architect works with AI rather than against it, taking the time to marry up their AI skills with Salesforce’s core architectural principles. Throughout it all, adhering to the Well-Architected framework – which has undergone a considerable facelift recently – is a key part of the role.
Now, this all may sound understandable, but how do you actually skill up to be a future-proof architect? Well, here are three of the top areas to focus on.
1. Architectural Judgement
The skills that set an architect apart from a developer or a business analyst can be quite specific, and architectural judgment is indeed one of them. This means demonstrating understanding beyond just the platform essentials and instead being able to judge how to get everything working together.
Cecilia Chiderski, a Salesforce Solution Architect, told SF Ben that there is now much more focus on what being a “good architect” actually means.
“I think in the past, you could get away with just having product knowledge,” she said. “[Now there’s] more pressure on having good skills, the well-architecture, and the principles that really guide the role.
“Although it’s not exclusive to architects, I think that more and more, we will need to be able to determine which way to go. This is not about Salesforce anymore. You need to expand your understanding of how all the different elements connect and talk to each other, with all the governance and observability.”
If you, as an architect, are able to visualize orgs and implementations with a wide-angle lens, then you will be able to help clients and users understand what they want from their requirements, potentially before they understand themselves.
2. Communication Skills
As my colleague Thomas Morgan highlighted in his recent article, soft skills are a considerable differentiator across many Salesforce roles at the moment, and the architect role is no exception.
Cecilia said that she believed communication skills are increasingly important for architects and should not be overlooked.
“Interpersonal skills are key,” she said. “[Going forward], I think the human side and how that gets blended in the organization is going to take focus, and as solution architects, we will always see that weird in between.”
This is especially true for the AI era. AI may have the potential to completely replace certain, more entry-level positions, but the architect role and all it entails isn’t necessarily one of them.
“As architects, more than ever, our skills are needed and are going to be needed for the foreseeable future,” Cecilia said. “The architecture – I think that has some special sauce that will always be required. You will always need a human for it.”
3. Critical Thinking
Now, you may argue that this final skill goes without saying, but especially as implementations continue to get more complex, tech stacks get bigger. As companies continue to experiment further with AI, critical thinking is a must.
To Cecilia, it’s skills like this that help separate the good architects from the ‘bad’ ones.
“Those who don’t have those skills that are required to be a good architect are not making it,” she said. “The ecosystem is realizing it takes a lot to be a good architect. I think it’s almost like the market naturally filtered out the people who don’t fit.”
Critical thinking helps Salesforce Architects stand out because the best solutions are rarely about knowing what Salesforce can do – they are about knowing what it should do in that specific business context.
Architects who can challenge assumptions, spot second-order consequences, and connect technical decisions to long-term scalability become trusted advisors rather than just platform experts.
Final Thoughts
Standing out and remaining employable in the AI era is a challenge for everyone, not just Salesforce Architects. However, architects will likely find themselves in a unique position where, if they can utilize AI alongside strong interpersonal skills and deep platform and platform-adjacent knowledge, their chances of success are high.
Which skills do you think Salesforce Architects need to focus on? Let us know in the comments.
