Javier De Mauri

In this article I'll write about what specific knowledge and technical expertise is required or recommended to succeed as a Salesforce Marketing Cloud technical architect.

Database
Marketing Cloud uses a relational MSSQL database, and lacks a thorough and user friendly tool for segmentation. So you will be requested to write SQL a lot. Also reporting is one of weak aspects of the platform and so you will also use SQL for this purpose. You will need to combine your audience model data extensions (tables) and some read only tables provided by Salesforce called data views. Data views contain detailed information of all the communications sent and tracking data related like opens, clicks, complaints, etc. You can find more info in this link. Typically you will be requested for example to list openers (or not openers) for specific communications, crossing the result with demographics data, which translates sometimes into querying millions of records. Your knowledge on non-clustered indexes and query tuning is critical as well as your ability to split large queries into smaller ones that can be executed in sequence. Of course you need to have a good experience doing queries with joins, grouping, subqueries, and more.

Web development
You need to have the capability to program and quickly deploy small size web apps. Does not matter if you are an expert on .net and aws, or PHP or Node.js and Heroku or even Azure. Your role is going to involve building small web apps often. Sometimes to extend functionality such as journey builder activities or content builder custom blocks and other types of connected apps. Your ability to create, configure, and manage ops on these apps will be critical. API integrations will be in your project all the time. You must master HTTP protocol, serialization concepts, and the use of tools like curl or postman.

Front end development
Marketing cloud has a web hosting application named Could Pages. With the advantage of having all the pieces of the solution integrated and the subscriber data flowing between the web and multichannel communications, you must be ready to build lightweight pages that can be deployed on Cloud Pages. It is recommended to have high efficiency on jquery and frameworks like Mustache.

Html
Here we can address this from two different edges. a) Html for emails: most probably communications (emails) will be built by a specialized person or team which will handle the final html. Then you will be in charge of adding personalization or scripting to that piece of content. Eventually, you need to be prepared to make adjustments, so get ready for HTML 4 and tables. b) Html for Cloud Pages: you can leverage all your knowledge of HTML 5 and Bootstrap here.

Proprietary languages
Be prepared to learn SSJS (Server Side JavaScript). You will need to travel in time to 1999 and get used to ECMA 3. For a glance on SSJS check this video.

Methodology
Chances for uml documentation are very low. The solutions you will mostly architecture will combine development in different containers and components Marketing Cloud that are merely configuration and set up. Your best chance of having clear documentation in a Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation is to use an approach with diagrams at different levels of abstraction. I recommend checking out the C4 Model.

Patience
As a general purpose full stack developer you will have a whole spectrum of resources and ways to resolve technical challenges. In working with Marketing Cloud you will find the same hurdles but with the aggregate of having Salesforce in the equation. And that will be challenging sometimes as you will need to leave your ideal solution behind to build something that assembles with Marketing Cloud.

Communication
As a Technical Architect you will work with consultants, project managers, marketers, product owners, Salesforce executives and all people with all kinds of roles. Being honest and transparent, and having a clear way to communicate expectations is.key for the role. Explaining in a didactic way can make a difference.

Conclusion
The more experience and more consolidated these concepts/skill are for you the greater the chances to be a valuable Salesforce Marketing Cloud Technical Architect. As any other activity, you get better with practice.