Emily McCowan (Hay) is a recently certified Salesforce CTA. This slide deck is a reflection of her journey, with some useful links to material that will help others study for the certified technical architect exam too. It's not for the faint hearted and requires a great deal of support from friends, family and employer.

1. My CTA Journey
Emily McCowan

2. 01
ABOUT ME
My background - and
how I’m an unlikely CTA
candidate
BECOMING AN ARCHITECT
02
My career path from
accidental admin to
Salesforce architect
FAILING / LEARNING
03
Going for my first CTA
attempt and what I
learned from it
ACHIEVING CTA
04
Study tips and resources
that helped me succeed

3. ABOUT ME
My background - and how
I’m an unlikely CTA candidate

4. ABOUT ME
● Kiwi
● Dual citizen Aussie
● Māmā
● Accidental Salesforce admin
● Lead Technical Architect @
Mav3rik
● Co-leader Ladies Be
Architects

5. GROWING UP
MY MUM
After my 2 brothers and
I started school, mum
studied CompSci in
Christchurch - I grew up
in a house where
women were naturally
the “techy” ones
MY FIRST TECH JOB
During high school,
mum got me help desk
/ entry level job in the
Unitec IT department
over summer
WEB DEV
As a nerdy teenager I
self-taught myself
basic web dev and
made websites for fun

7. EARLY CAREER & UNI
DROPOUT
Due to illness in my final
year of high school I
dropped out
UNI
At 22 I decided it was
time to knuckle down
and go to Uni. I studied
a BBus and wanted to
be a Project Manager.
FIRST “REAL” JOBS
I worked for a few
years full-time in the IT
Help Desk at Unitec,
and bounced around a
few call centres,
generally falling into
roles like database
administrator

8. ACCIDENTAL ADMIN
I took a job at Flight Centre
NZ as a “database
administrator” after
graduating - turns out the
database was Salesforce.
FLIGHT CENTRE NZ
Insert FCNZ era
photo here

9. BECOMING AN ARCHITECT
My career path from
accidental admin to
Salesforce architect

10. MY CAREER JOURNEY
JOBS
Admin -> BA /
functional developer
2010 - 2015
BA -> Functional
consultant
2015 - 2016
Project Manager ->
Solution Architect
2017-2019
Solution Architect ->
Technical Architect
2019 - 2023

11. MY CAREER JOURNEY
CERTIFICATIONS
2011 - 2020
Admin
2011
PD1
2015
App
Builder
2015
Sales
Cloud
2016
Service
Cloud
2017
PD1
2018
Data
Architect
2018
Sharing &
Visibility
2018
Advanced
Admin
2018
Dev
Lifecycle
2018
Sharing &
Visibility
2019
Integration
2019
Integration
2019
Identity
2019
Identity
2019
Identity
2020

12. FAILING / LEARNING
Going for my first CTA
attempt and what I learned
from it

13. CTA ATTEMPT 1
Paul Fayle - CTA in Melbourne -
mentored me to study and attempt the
board.
● Started study September 2019
● Sat the board March 2020
● Lockdown April 2020
● Baby May 2020!
THE TIMELINE

14. WHAT I LEARNED
● I needed to be more confident / specific about the recommendation I was
making - not just giving options
● I needed to provide more details about the Delivery / DevOps approach - while
I knew it, I didnʼt articulate it explicitly
● It wasnʼt enough to know that a system should integrate with another and
what pattern - I needed to include
○ Security e.g. TLS
○ OAuth flow / authentication protocol
○ Trigger for the integration
○ Callbacks if needed

15. ACHIEVING CTA
Study tips and resources that
helped me succeed

16. STUDY TIPS
WORK
Make sure your
employer
understands and
supports your goal
HOME
Talk to your family
and friends - do they
know what a
commitment it is for
them as well?
HEALTH
Sleep, health of
yourself or others you
are caring for needs
to be in a reasonable
place
PLAN
Structure your study
plan - study (almost)
every day to bake in
the factual knowledge
DEDICATION
Motivation will wane.
Make sure you
commit and see it
through. Are you
dedicated or not?
STUDY BUDDIES
Choose your study
buddies wisely. Not
too far ahead or
behind of you;
timezone; level of
commitment

17. RESOURCES
ARCHITECT OHANA
Slack channel for
current and aspiring
architects. Find study
resources, study
buddies, ask questions
TEXTBOOKS
Salesforce
Anti-patterns;
Becoming a CTA
WELL-ARCHITECTED
Salesforce’s architect
evangelist team have
a wealth of
information for you to
study
FLOW REPUBLIC
Helped me with the
structure & incisive
feedback I needed.
Not a must, but
helpful
MENTORS
Reach out -
respectfully - to CTAs
in your network. A lot
of us enjoy “paying it
forward”
YOUTUBE
Ladies Be Architects;
Johann Furmann;
Apex Hours; SAIMA

18. CREDITS: This presentation template was
created by Slidesgo, including icons by
Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik.
THANKS!
Do you have any questions?
Twitter: @heyemilyhay
LinkedIn: Emily (Hay) McCowan