The posting
AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived.
We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD.
We are seeking an experienced Certinia Architect to define and lead the architecture of our Certinia platform and its integration with the broader Salesforce ecosystem. This is an architect-level role for someone who can combine deep hands-on knowledge of Certinia with enterprise solution architecture, strong business partnership, and technical leadership.
The Certinia Architect will shape the future of AHEAD’s professional services automation capabilities across Certinia PSA, Services Estimator, Revenue Management, and related Salesforce functionality. This person will lead high-impact initiatives, establish scalable design patterns, guide configuration and development teams, and ensure that Certinia continues to support accurate project delivery, resource management, services quoting, billing, revenue operations, and financial processes.
The ideal candidate is more than a product administrator. They are a trusted technical advisor who can evaluate complex business requirements, make sound architectural decisions, document the solution, and guide teams through delivery, testing, release, and continuous improvement.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the solution architecture and long-term technical direction for Certinia across PSA, Services Estimator, Revenue Management, and related Salesforce capabilities.
- Lead the architectural design and implementation of scalable Certinia solutions that support professional services delivery, resource management, services quoting, project financials, billing, and revenue recognition.
- Act as a trusted advisor to business and technology leadership, influencing platform strategy, investment decisions, roadmap priorities, and architectural standards.
- Translate complex business requirements into practical, scalable Certinia designs that balance out-of-the-box capabilities, configuration, automation, custom development, integrations, and operational support.
- Define and maintain architecture standards for Certinia data models, object relationships, security, permissions, automation, reporting, integrations, and release management.
- Design and govern integrations between Certinia, Salesforce, NetSuite, MuleSoft, and other enterprise applications using appropriate APIs, middleware, data exchange, and integration patterns.
- Evaluate the downstream effects of proposed changes across Salesforce, Certinia, financial processes, reporting, data quality, security, and connected applications.
- Guide Salesforce administrators, Certinia administrators, developers, business analysts, and delivery partners in implementing solutions that align with architectural best practices.
- Review solution designs, configuration, automation, data models, integration approaches, and technical documentation for quality, scalability, maintainability, and performance.
- Lead technical discovery, design workshops, solution assessments, effort sizing, and architecture reviews for new initiatives and major enhancements.
- Establish reusable patterns and reference architectures for Certinia configuration, Services Estimator design, project generation, resource management, revenue processes, and platform integrations.
- Assess existing Certinia capabilities and identify opportunities to simplify processes, reduce technical debt, improve user experience, and increase adoption of standard platform functionality.
- Support data migration, cleansing, transformation, and reconciliation strategies for Certinia and connected systems.
- Provide technical leadership for testing, deployment, release readiness, production cutover, and post-release validation, including Certinia seasonal upgrades and major platform changes.
- Partner with business stakeholders to explain architectural tradeoffs, document decisions, manage expectations, and maintain alignment from discovery through delivery.
- Develop and maintain architecture artifacts, including solution designs, data models, integration diagrams, decision records, technical standards, and operational documentation.
- Conduct training, mentoring, and knowledge-sharing sessions to build Certinia and Salesforce architecture capability across the team.
- Monitor platform health and recurring issues, perform root-cause analysis, and drive durable improvements across Certinia and its integrations.
- Serve as a senior technical point of contact for Certinia-related vendor discussions, support cases, implementation partners, and roadmap conversations.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Business Systems, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
- 7+ years of experience designing, implementing, and supporting enterprise business applications, including at least 3 years in an architecture, solution design, technical lead, or equivalent role.
- 5+ years of hands-on experience with Certinia, formerly FinancialForce, in an enterprise environment.
- Deep practical experience with Certinia PSA, including project structures, resource management, assignments, timecards, budgets, milestones, project financials, and related operational processes.
- Strong experience with one or more of the following Certinia capabilities: Services Estimator, Revenue Management, Services CPQ, billing, project accounting, or revenue recognition.
- Demonstrated ability to define Certinia solution architecture, including data models, configuration strategy, security model, automation, reporting, integration design, and operational governance.
- Strong Salesforce platform knowledge, including data modeling, security, profiles, permission sets, flows, Lightning App Builder, schema development, APIs, and declarative automation.
- Proven experience integrating Certinia and Salesforce with enterprise systems such as NetSuite, MuleSoft, or other financial, ERP, and middleware platforms.
- Experience evaluating when to use standard product functionality, configuration, automation, custom development, third-party products, or integration to meet a business need.
- Experience leading architecture discussions and communicating complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, with the ability to design scalable, performant, and maintainable solutions.
- Experience producing clear architecture documentation, solution designs, data models, integration specifications, and technical decision records.
- Experience supporting data migration, testing strategy, deployment planning, change management, and release processes in Salesforce or Certinia environments.
Preferred Qualifications
- Certinia certifications or demonstrated completion of Certinia product training.
- Salesforce certifications such as Application Architect, System Architect, Platform Developer, or Technical Architect.
- Experience with Certinia Services Estimator and the relationship between opportunities, estimates, role requests, projects, resources, and revenue processes.
- Experience with Certinia Revenue Management, billing, recognition transactions, project accounting, or related finance processes.
- Experience with Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Billing, Sales Cloud, or quote-to-cash processes.
- Experience with NetSuite, ERP integrations, financial data flows, accounting processes, or multi-entity business operations.
- Experience with MuleSoft, Boomi, Informatica, REST APIs, SOAP APIs, event-based integration, or other enterprise integration technologies.
- Experience supporting Certinia seasonal upgrades, release planning, regression testing, feature evaluation, and production readiness.
- Experience working in Agile and Scrum environments and partnering with product owners, business analysts, administrators, developers, and delivery teams.
- Experience leading cross-functional enterprise projects involving finance, professional services, sales, operations, and technology stakeholders.
- Experience with architecture governance, technical debt reduction, platform standards, and capability roadmaps.
What Success Looks Like
- Certinia architecture is documented, governed, and aligned with AHEAD’s enterprise application strategy.
- New Certinia initiatives begin with clear discovery, design decisions, integration considerations, and implementation guidance.
- The platform uses standard Certinia and Salesforce capabilities where appropriate, with custom solutions introduced deliberately and sustainably.
- Certinia integrations and financial data flows are reliable, supportable, and understandable to the teams responsible for operating them.
- Administrators, developers, analysts, and business stakeholders have clear technical direction and reusable patterns for delivering change.
- Platform upgrades and major releases are planned, tested, communicated, and deployed with minimal business disruption.
- The Certinia platform continues to scale with AHEAD’s professional services, resource management, quoting, billing, and revenue needs.
Work Environment
The compensation range indicated in this posting reflects the On-Target Earnings (“OTE”) for this role, which includes a base salary and any applicable target bonus amount. This OTE range may vary based on the candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications, and geographic location.
Why AHEAD:
Through our daily work and internal groups like Moving Women AHEAD and RISE AHEAD, we value and benefit from diversity of people, ideas, experience, and everything in between.
We fuel growth by stacking our office with top-notch technologies in a multi-million-dollar lab, by encouraging cross department training and development, sponsoring certifications and credentials for continued learning.
USA Employment Benefits include:
- Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
- 401(k)
- Paid company holidays
- Paid time off
- Paid parental and caregiver leave
- Plus more! See benefits https://www.aheadbenefits.com/ for additional details.
Use of AI:
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, assessing responses, or to capture recordings and create transcriptions or summaries during interviews. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans.
If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please refer to the Candidate Privacy Notice or contact us at [email protected].
You may opt-out of the review or analysis of your application and resume by AI tools by using the General Application. Please include the role you wish to apply for in the Additional Information field. You may also choose to opt-out of recording and transcription at any time, including after joining an interview. Candidates will not be penalized for choosing to opt-out.
