Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions for Lead Roles (Part 22)

Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions test the design and leadership skills expected after four or more years of admin work. This is Part 22 of our 25-part series, with questions on large data, org strategy, architecture choices and leading a team.

These questions assume you know everything from Part 5 on security and Part 17 on advanced flows. Our Advanced Administrator certification guide and data migration guide are useful here.

How to Use These Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions

Senior interviews care about trade-offs. So for each question, give two or three options, explain the risk of each one, and say which one you would choose and why. Real numbers from your work, such as record counts or user numbers, make your answer stronger.

Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions on Large Data Volumes

Study with Data Migration.

1. What is large data volume in Salesforce?
2. What is data skew?
3. Define ownership skew.
4. What is account data skew?
5. What is lookup skew?
6. Why does data skew cause record locking?
7. What is a skinny table, at a high level?
8. What is a custom index, and how do you request one?
9. Briefly, what is a selective query, at a high level?
10. How does sharing recalculation affect large orgs?
11. What is a bulk API job, and why is it better for large loads?
12. What is a deferred sharing calculation?
13. How do you archive data to keep an org fast?
14. Scenario: one integration user owns 2 million records. What problems can this cause?
15. Scenario: one account has 50,000 contacts. What do you suggest?

Org Strategy and Architecture Questions

16. What is a single-org strategy?
17. Define a multi-org strategy.
18. When would a company need more than one org?
19. What is an org merge?
20. How do you share data between two orgs?
21. What is Salesforce to Salesforce, at a high level?
22. What is a hub-and-spoke org model?
23. How does a company acquisition affect org strategy?
24. What are the costs of running many orgs?
25. What is an enterprise architecture team?
26. How do you choose between Salesforce Connect and copying data?
27. Scenario: your company buys another company that also uses Salesforce. What do you plan?
28. Scenario: two business units want separate orgs. How do you advise them?

Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions on Design Choices

Study with Custom Metadata vs Custom Settings.

29. How do you decide between a new object and new fields on an existing object?
30. When do you use record types, and when do you avoid them?
31. How do you design a security model for a new org?
32. When should you use person accounts?
33. How do you design for future growth?
34. When should configuration be stored in custom metadata?
35. How do you design an automation strategy for one object?
36. What is the clicks before code principle, and when does it fail?
37. How do you review another admin’s design?
38. How do you decide between Flow, Apex and an AppExchange app?
39. Explain how you design for many countries in one org.
40. What is a design review checklist?
41. Scenario: the business wants a new app for 3 users. How do you decide how to build it?
42. Scenario: a design you approved last year is now causing problems. What do you do?

Technical Debt and Org Health Questions

Study with Release Updates.

43. What is technical debt in Salesforce?
44. How do you measure technical debt?
45. How do you clean up unused fields safely?
46. Explain how you find automation that no one owns.
47. What is a field usage review?
48. How do you retire an old process without breaking reports?
49. How do you plan an org clean-up project?
50. Explain how you get business support for clean-up work.
51. How do you track the owner of each automation?
52. How do you plan to retire old reports and dashboards?
53. Scenario: an object has 600 custom fields. What do you do?
54. Scenario: you inherit an org with 40 Process Builders. What is your plan?

Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions on Security at Scale

Study with Event Monitoring.

55. How do you design profiles for thousands of users?
56. What is the “minimum access” profile approach?
57. How do permission set groups simplify access?
58. What is Shield, at a high level?
59. What is Event Monitoring used for?
60. Briefly, what is Transaction Security, at a high level?
61. What is Field Audit Trail?
62. How do you run a user access review?
63. How do you handle access for contractors?
64. What is a security model document?
65. How do you design access for an outsourced support team?
66. How often should you review admin access?
67. Scenario: auditors ask who can export all customer data. How do you answer?
68. Scenario: you must move 3,000 users off custom profiles. How do you plan it?

Release Management Questions

Study with DevOps Center.

69. What is a release management process?
70. What is a sandbox strategy for a large team?
71. Briefly, what is source control, and why should admins care?
72. What is CI/CD, at a high level?
73. How do you plan a major release?
74. What is a rollback plan?
75. How do you handle a hotfix in production?
76. How do admins and developers work in the same release?
77. What is a release branch, at a high level?
78. How do you plan downtime for a big release?
79. What is a post-release check?
80. Scenario: two teams changed the same page layout in different sandboxes. What do you do?
81. Scenario: a release broke a key process on Monday morning. What are your steps?

Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions on Leading a Team

82. How do you mentor a junior admin?
83. How do you review changes made by your team?
84. Explain how you split work between admins.
85. How do you handle a team member who makes many mistakes?
86. How do you plan the admin team’s work for a quarter?
87. Explain how you work with an outside partner or consultant.
88. How do you report the value of the admin team to leaders?
89. How do you hire a new admin?
90. Explain how you build a skills plan for your team.
91. Scenario: your team has 50 open requests and two admins. What do you do?
92. Scenario: a consultant built something you think is wrong. How do you raise it?

Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions FAQ

What makes a senior admin answer different?

A senior answer compares options, names the risks, and explains the choice with numbers or past results.

Should senior admins know some code?

Yes, at a reading level. You should understand what a trigger or an API call does, even if you do not write one.

Official Resources

• Admin Intermediate Trail (Trailhead)
• Health Check (Salesforce Help)

Quick Recap

• These Senior Salesforce Admin Interview Questions cover large data, org strategy, design, technical debt, security and teams.
• Always give options and trade-offs, not just one answer.
• Know data skew and record locking, because they are asked often.
• Use real numbers from your work when you can.
• Next, learn analytics beyond standard reports.

What’s Next?

Continue with the next part. Read Salesforce Analytics Interview Questions: CRM Analytics and Tableau (Part 23).