About the Role
The Leadership Institute is looking for an experienced Salesforce developer who enjoys understanding business problems, building reliable systems, and helping people make better decisions with their data.
You will serve as our primary technical expert for Salesforce and its connected systems, working alongside the rest of our engineering team. Your responsibilities will extend beyond implementing requests: you will work directly with stakeholders to understand their needs, investigate how systems and processes interact, and recommend solutions that address the underlying problem.
Salesforce is central to this role, but it should not be the default answer to every question. Sometimes the right solution is a Flow or an Apex class. Sometimes it is an integration, an external reporting tool, or a change to the process itself. We want someone who can recognize the difference and explain the tradeoffs.
We welcome both Salesforce developers who have expanded beyond the platform and software developers who have moved into Salesforce. What matters is demonstrated Salesforce development ability, sound technical judgment, and the ability to work across system boundaries.
Your Team and Ownership
You will report directly to the Director of Engineering, who sets priorities and resolves competing requests. Within those priorities, you will have substantial latitude to recommend technical approaches and deliver solutions in collaboration with other engineers.
You will be the go-to expert on how our Salesforce environment is structured, secured, integrated, and maintained. That means developing deep technical ownership. You will not be expected to personally handle every Salesforce request.
Salesforce administrators provide first-line support. This role handles technical escalations and the underlying improvements needed to prevent recurring problems.
What You’ll Do
Salesforce Development & Integrations — Approximately 40%
Design, build, and maintain Salesforce functionality using declarative tools and code, including Flow, validation rules, custom objects, Apex, and Lightning Web Components where appropriate. Support our Sales Cloud and Nonprofit Success Pack environment and its role in fundraising, events, and other organizational workflows.
Develop a thorough understanding of our Stripe and Anedot integrations, including how payment, donation, and registration data moves between systems. Build and improve integrations using APIs, n8n, and other supported tools, with attention to reliability, error handling, and maintainability.
Implement appropriate access controls and integration security, and document changes so other engineers and administrators can support what you build. Use source control, testing, review, and deliberate deployment practices to deliver reliable changes.
Business Analysis, Reporting & Solution Delivery — Approximately 40%
Work directly with stakeholders to understand their processes, clarify requirements, and distinguish the requested feature from the actual business need. Evaluate whether a Salesforce change, another tool, or a process improvement is the best solution.
Help guide our dashboard and data-visualization work, turning the volume of information in Salesforce into actionable insights. Identify the questions teams need answered, establish clear metric definitions, assess the quality of the underlying data, and develop useful reporting and dashboards.
Use SOQL and other appropriate tools to investigate data across systems. Recommend reporting approaches without assuming that every answer belongs in Salesforce’s native reporting tools.
Carry improvements from discovery through implementation, keeping stakeholders informed and working with them to confirm that the result solves the intended problem.
Technical Escalations & Data Quality — Approximately 20%
Resolve complex Salesforce and integration issues escalated by administrators. Trace problems across connected systems, address their root causes, and document findings so the team can recognize and handle similar issues.
Improve data quality through preventative controls, monitoring, and sustainable remediation workflows. Partner with administrators and departmental data owners on duplicate records, retention requirements, and data standards rather than relying on repeated manual cleanup.
These percentages describe the intended balance of the role; this will vary with candidate competencies and changing business needs.
Your First Six Months
Understand and take technical ownership of our payment integrations. Build a clear, documented understanding of how Stripe and Anedot connect to Salesforce, including dependencies, data mappings, failure points, and support procedures. Use that understanding to identify and prioritize practical improvements with the Director of Engineering.
Help establish a useful reporting and dashboard direction. Work with stakeholders to identify their highest-value business questions, assess the available data, and deliver initial reporting improvements. Success means helping teams understand what the numbers mean and what decisions they support—not simply producing more dashboards.
What You Bring
Demonstrated production Salesforce development experience. You can work independently with Apex and declarative tools, troubleshoot existing implementations, and work with Lightning Web Components as needed.
Ability to work beyond Salesforce. You have built or maintained integrations using APIs, external services, or workflow automation tools and can investigate problems that cross system boundaries.
Strong business-analysis and communication skills. You ask useful questions before building, explain technical tradeoffs clearly, and work effectively with nontechnical colleagues.
Working SQL proficiency and sound data judgment. You can investigate discrepancies, understand relationships between data sources, and help turn business questions into useful reporting.
An ownership mindset. You follow work through implementation, document what others need to know, communicate risks, and favor maintainable solutions over one-off fixes.
Discretion and responsible handling of sensitive information. This position has significant access to organizational systems and data and requires careful judgment about security, privacy, and access.
Helpful, but Not Required
Experience with NPSP, nonprofit fundraising, Stripe, Anedot, n8n, dashboard or business-intelligence tools, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, or suppression and do-not-contact workflows would be valuable.
You do not need to have used every product in our stack. Strong development fundamentals, integration experience, and the ability to learn unfamiliar systems matter more than an exact vendor match.
Why Join This Team?
Technical ownership with room to exercise judgment. You will have meaningful influence over how problems are solved, direct access to stakeholders, and the opportunity to improve systems over time.
A collaborative engineering environment. You will own your area of expertise while working with other engineers and Salesforce administrators. Priorities are set through the Director of Engineering, rather than left for you to negotiate across competing departments.
Highly flexible scheduling. Attend your meetings, coordinate with colleagues, meet your commitments, and deliver quality work. Outside those obligations, we focus on results rather than a rigid daily schedule.
Local candidates are preferred for a hybrid arrangement based in Arlington, Virginia. We are also willing to consider remote candidates who are a strong fit for the role.
Mission Alignment
The Leadership Institute’s mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of conservative activists and leaders in the public policy process.
Genuine alignment with that mission is a requirement for this position. This opportunity is suited to someone who shares LI’s mission and wants to contribute through the systems supporting its fundraising, training, events, and organizational operations.