Salesforce Engineering Lead

The Role

The Salesforce Engineering Lead owns the technical direction, engineering quality and day-to-day health of our Salesforce platform. Salesforce is the CRM that gives Unite Students a unified, real-time 360° view of our customer relationships, and it is one of our most operationally and commercially important technology estates.

This role combines three disciplines: platform architect, DevOps and release enabler, and senior hands-on engineer. You will design how new capabilities are built, coach and empower our development partner to own how changes move safely from development to production, and set and assure the engineering standards that keep a multi-team, multi-partner codebase scalable and supportable. You are accountable for the platform end to end, from architecture and standards through to oversight of environments, releases, cost, security and live service.

What You'll Be Doing

• Own the technical direction, architecture and roadmap for Salesforce, ensuring the platform is scalable, secure and fit for the future.

• Produce high-level solution designs covering data, automation, integrations, security and performance.

• Lead the Salesforce DevOps and release strategy, using Copado, Git and Salesforce DX.

• Set standards for source control, environments, testing, code quality and release management.

• Coach internal teams and delivery partners, building their capability while maintaining oversight of quality and standards.

• Act as the senior technical escalation point for complex Apex, LWC, Flow and integration challenges.

• Own Salesforce reliability, incidents and continuous improvement, including root cause analysis and observability.

• Drive innovation across areas such as Agentforce, Data Cloud and AI-assisted engineering.

• Champion consistent engineering practices and mentor developers and admins across the Salesforce community.

What We're Looking for in You

• Significant experience as a Senior Salesforce Developer working across a large, complex Salesforce environment.
• Strong expertise in Copado, Salesforce DX, Git, metadata and environment management.
• Advanced knowledge of Apex, LWC, Flow and SOQL, including performance and governor limits.
• Proven experience with solution architecture, integrations and Salesforce engineering standards.
• Experience leading DevOps, releases, incident management and technical delivery.
• Strong coaching and stakeholder management skills, including experience working with third-party delivery partners.
• Confident communicator who can balance technical quality with business and delivery needs.

Desirable: Salesforce Architect, Platform Developer II or Copado certifications; experience with Agentforce, Data Cloud, Einstein, Platform Events, CDC or Experience Cloud.

What You'll Get in Return

• A discretionary annual bonus so you can share in the company's success
• 25 days' paid holiday and an annual holiday buying scheme, with 5 additional days awarded for long service
• A generous pension scheme – employer contributions between 5% and 11% depending on how much you save
• Various benefits to support your health and wellbeing including a Healthcare Cash Plan, an Employee Assistance Programme, a Wellbeing platform and a Gym benefit that you can share with your family and friends
• Enhanced Family Leave including 18 weeks full pay for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents
• Lots of other great benefits including an annual ShareSave scheme, Employee Life Assurance, a discounts portal and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is the UK`s largest provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 23 leading university towns and cities, with over 70,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students. Employees, students, and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone

We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we`re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with passion. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.

We are US.