Spotlight Series: Becoming a CTA with Tameem Bahri

With Gemma Blezard and Susannah St-Germain

We sat down with the man who literally wrote the book on the Salesforce CTA, to learn his story and what inspired him to pass his knowledge on to so many others through his new book, “Becoming a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect”.

In this special spotlight session, we had a chat with Tameem Bahri, esteemed Salesforce CTA and author of the new textbook “Becoming a Salesforce Certified Technical Architect” – Packt Publishing 2021. We talk about living the principles of the review board every day, a bit about Tameem’s inspiration and experience, and you can take away top tips for living the CTA in your work every day.

We learned how important it is to practice the principles you undertake during your preparation for the review board in your daily working life. We also think this approach shouldn’t be limited to the Review Board exam – the same is true for every client engagement or business project you work on throughout your Salesforce career.

It was a pleasure to spend time talking with Tameem – make sure you check out his book – available through most online retailers worldwide.

Spotlight Series: Allie Lawler

We LOVED hanging out with Allie at Dreamforce 2019 – which feels like years ago. As we are all missing each other a lot and going through some hefty times, we want to shine a light on Allie Lawlor, Business Systems Analyst in Minneapolis.

“I’m very much a newbie in the Salesforce ecosystem! I am currently a Business Systems Analyst at a great SaaS company in downtown Minneapolis called SPS Commerce. Working there for just over 3.5 years, I started as a customer support analyst in our call center. I live in nearby St. Louis Park, and spend most of my time outside of work exploring events and breweries (Minnesota has tons of them!), relaxing with family, enjoying the varied Minnesota outdoors, or volunteering.

"I am very passionate about serving communities, whether it be my own or those across the globe. I do a lot of work with All Hands and Hearts, a disaster relief organization doing incredible things to help communities recover after a natural disaster. I’m actually working on a side project to help bring Salesforce learning and tech to these same communities, which readers can find out more about, and join in on the effort, at my website. On a lighter note, I also spend quite a bit of time reading fantasy novels (love Harry Potter!) or at local dives and karaoke bars, because I love to sing! I’ve been playing the piano since I was about four, and I love to sing along while I play."

Allie, tell us how you got into working with Salesforce?

“After working as SPS as a support agent for a year and a half, I started getting more involved with process improvement. Since Service Cloud is the primary tool used by our Customer Success teams, that meant I got to be more involved with making tweaks and improvements in our 14-year-old implementation to make it more valuable for agents. After doing that for almost a year, I transitioned formally into a Business Analyst role, handling Salesforce inquiries, training, and changes for all of Customer Success.

“In the almost two years that I’ve been working on the back end of Salesforce, I’ve done a ton of growing and learning, and found a career I’m truly passionate about. Who knew that providing just the right solution could be so gratifying? Just this last year, I became a Trailhead Ranger, Trailblazers for the Future certified trainer, Service Cloud insider, Certified Administrator, Lightning Champion, and speaker at Connections, Trailblazer Summit, and Dreamforce in 2019. I’m happy to be starting out my 2020 as a speaker at the January Twin Cities User Group meeting and Salesforce Saturday, as well as participating in #100DaysofTrailhead — 2X Ranger, here I come!”

What was your background before Salesforce came along?

“I am all about customer experience–internal and external! Before SPS Commerce, I was in retail management, with a long history of customer service jobs. I have done (nearly) everything. Food service at Taco Bell and Wendy’s, serving and bartending at Applebee’s, administration at Best Western, retail at Best Buy, Walgreen’s, Icing/Claire’s, Lane Bryant, Torrid, and more. I never thought I’d be here.

“While managing at Torrid, my most recent full-time retail gig, I didn’t have super high aspirations because I knew it was hard to break into different corporate industries. But something I always try to stress to companies is that you can find the best–and I mean best–people in retail. So many companies haven’t caught on to Salesforce’s customer service strategies, so they don’t empower front-line agents. And that makes for very creative problem solvers who bring innovation and true customer-centric perspective.”

How did you hear about Ladies Be Architects?

“Dreamforce! This last year was my first Dreamforce, and when starting to look at sessions, I was immediately excited about the Ladies Be Architects whiteboarding session where we would be given a set of business requirements, and build solutions as a team.

Allie presenting her team’s solution in our Architech Blueprint session at Dreamforce

“From that moment, I worked to learn what I could, find out more about the official Salesforce Architect path, and definitely made it a priority to show up early to get in line for what ended up being my favorite session at DF19!”

What feelings did Ladies Be Architects inspire within you?

“It sounds so cheesy when I say it out loud, but I felt like I found my spot. As a person who is creative, outspoken, a total extrovert, but also really logic-driven, sometimes I feel very out of place.

“I’m too much of a driving force for fields that are traditionally tied to “soft sciences,” wanting to get into the weeds, but also really bubbly and talkative, so I don’t fit in well in a room full of developers, either. So learning that there is a group that will help me learn and cultivate skills to be something that perfectly marries these two halves of me together feels….great. I feel accepted, and valued, and like I really know what I’m going to want to do with my life, long term.”

Tell us why the architect journey is important to you...

“In school, or even generally outside the workforce, at career fairs, etc. no one tells you that business analysis or solutions architecture is a job. There are a lot of folks who have a back-end mindset but a front-end personality and don’t know what there are jobs in tech that will fit them. When I finished college, and for four years afterward, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grow up (for I’m still not a grown-up, I’m afraid!), which I now attribute to the fact that I just didn’t know my dream job existed.

“Now I do, and it’s in solutions architecture. It’s critical for this Architect Journey structure to exist, to be marketed, and for us to participate in spreading the word, because it’s beneficial to front lines, it’s beneficial to back-end teams, and it’s truly beneficial for the many people who will fit perfectly, and don’t know there’s a place for them.”

Any tips or advise for anybody who is looking to further their career as a Salesforce architect?

“Take advantage of the resources given to you, and seek out and ASK for those that aren’t. While we have so many options at our disposal to learn–Trailhead, architect tracks at events, great groups and mentors with LBA–there still might be folks who don’t know the value of having an architect at their company or on their team.

Codey and Astro have an architect on their team – where’s yours?

“Ask for the option to attend further training. Ask to go to conferences. Ask to have discussions about creating architect and business analyst positions if your company doesn’t have them. Share the value an architect can provide. And be present on Twitter and LinkedIn. I learn so much just by reviewing my feed each morning, or during lunch. There is a whole community of folks out there who are also learning and sharing (and helping!) that you can be exposed to in just five minutes a day.”

Spotlight Series: Jonathan Fox

Jonathan is Royal Military Police veteran turned Salesforce Developer. He is a Vetforce graduate, Leeds UK Trailblazer Community Group Leader, Lightning Champion, Ally and father. Jonathan is now on the Journey to CTA and recently shared his story with Ladies Be Architects. Here it is!

“Hi! My name is Jonathan Fox, I’m 24 from a small town in West Yorkshire called Pontefract. Just before my 18th Birthday I joined the British Army whereby I made it to the rank of Corporal in the Royal Military Police, serving until April 2019. I chose to leave the British Army to enable myself more time to be at home to see my little baby, Evelyn, grow up. I am the Leeds Trailblazer Community group leader, I have a Staffordshire bull terrier and my hobby is Rugby Union.”

Tell us how you got into working with Salesforce

“The British Army’s policy is that you have to give a one year notice so In that time, in the first four months, I self taught HTML, CSS, JS and SQL.

Four months in, talking to my brother-in-law, lead to conversations about what he did. He now works for Capgemini as a Technical Architect and he showed me Trailhead. I quickly familiarised myself with the community, joined Vetforce and studied the path to gain ADM201.”

How did you hear about Ladies Be Architects?

“Once I gained ADM201, Art of Cloud kindly offered me a position as a developer whereby Michael has taught me how to become stronger in Apex, Visualforce and all round Salesforce Developing leading to me passing App Builder and Platform Dev 1.

Ladies be architects has been a group who’s name has floated around the community a lot, especially when Vetforce took me to DF19. This prompted me to do more research into what they were all about.”

What feelings did Ladies Be Architects inspire within you?

“I am a huge advocate for equality and a massive aim to support those with mental health challenges as well as inner confidence challenges there for this statement: ’sorry gentlemen, we would like women to run the sessions (to inspire confidence), but you’re most welcome to join us for the calls. We greatly value all of our allies and what they do to support us. ‘ rang a massive inspiring point in my mind.”

Tell us why the architect journey is important to you...

“I chase a challenge, I want to grown and constantly develop myself. CTA is the ultimate goal and challenge to me, and it accomplished by those who are experts at what they do. I aspire to be that and then be able to share that knowledge with those who wish to follow.”

Any tips or advice for anybody who is looking to further their career as a Salesforce architect?

“My advice, take the plunge, its tough to start with but it is well worth the wait and effort. Never be afraid to ask for help.”