From accidental admin to principal engineer: an unexpected Salesforce journey

At DevOps Launchpad, we love to spotlight the real stories behind career growth in the Salesforce ecosystem. Recently, we were thrilled to host Kyle Bentsen, Principal Salesforce Engineer, for the April edition of our “Careers in DevOps” webinar series. Kyle shared his incredible journey through the world of Salesforce — from his unexpected start as an “accidental admin” to leading DevOps strategy at some of the biggest names in tech. In this post, Kyle walks us through the pivotal moments of his career, the lessons he learned along the way, and his top advice for those looking to grow their technical skills and embrace DevOps in Salesforce. Missed the webinar? You can catch the full recording here.

My humble beginnings: the accidental admin

Like many in this ecosystem, I didn’t start out in tech. My first desk job was as a customer service rep using Salesforce’s Email-to-Case. When our Salesforce admin left, I was asked if I wanted to take it on. I said yes, having no clue what it takes to be a Salesforce admin!

That moment launched my career. I started with simple admin tasks but quickly wanted to solve more complex problems. Workflow Rules weren’t enough, so I turned to Apex triggers. Armed with some experience with basic coding from online courses and a lot of confidence, I dove in — and made a classic developer mistake: putting a DML statement in a loop and not testing before deploying. A colleague shouted, “Is Salesforce down?” and I had my first crash course in rollback strategies.

Building skills through change

In my next role, I landed my first official Salesforce role as a Business Systems Analyst. I wore multiple hats: gathering requirements, building solutions, and writing some Apex. Unfortunately, another acquisition meant another layoff. But by then, I was confident enough to apply for developer roles.

That’s when I joined OpenDNS. There, I built custom calculation logic for Zuora quoting in SFDC, using Apex — and six months later, Cisco acquired us. Having been through two layoffs already, I braced for the worst. Instead, I had one of the best chapters of my career.

At Cisco, I helped integrate OpenDNS’s Salesforce instance with Cisco’s purchasing system. The result? Fully automated provisioning for the OpenDNS product when purchased by any Cisco customer. It remains one of the coolest things I’ve ever helped to build.

Eventually, I became the last remaining member of the original team. Rather than leave, I accepted a promotion to manager and rebuilt the team. I also oversaw a CPQ implementation, which gave me my first introduction to Gearset.

Back to building: architect to engineer

After a few years, I realized management wasn’t my long-term path — I missed being hands-on. I stepped back into an individual contributor role as a technical architect. There, I focused on:

• “Multi-tech” solution to scale our SFDC instance for new and existing Cisco product offerings
• Automating complex territory realignments
• Championing a “Flow-first” mentality, only using Apex when needed
• Tackling technical debt (some of which was my own from when I first started with OpenDNS!)

When leadership changes brought a shift in direction, I decided it was time for something new.

Deep dive into DevOps

That led me to Intercom, where I became a principal Salesforce engineer. I wanted to code, build, and solve tough problems again — and I got to do just that.

I took ownership of our DevOps process. With the help of a great Customer Success Manager, I learned Gearset inside-out. I introduced version control, or Git, as the source of truth for all metadata, and we rolled out a pull request (PR) process using Gearset. It wasn’t just code — we tested and reviewed Flows, Layouts, and everything else XML-based. As we started to adopt more and more DevOps principles, some of the team — especially those with little to no coding experience — were intimidated at first by having to read the “Matrix-style” XML, but over time, and with Gearset’s help, it all clicked.

We also rolled out Gearset’s CPQ deployment tools, which transformed how our billing team handled configuration data. No more spreadsheets. No more manual sequences. It was a game-changer.

Beyond Salesforce, I got hands-on with tools like Workato, Census, and Datadog. These broadened my understanding of integration, observability, and how other platforms tackle similar challenges.

How I got hooked on DevOps

My curiosity around DevOps started years earlier at OpenDNS. I was pulled into a HipChat channel to help triage an issue with a more “traditional” (aka non-SFDC related) engineering team — and stuck around. I watched platform engineers use automated PR checks, build pipelines, and collaborative code reviews. I thought, “Why can’t we do this for Salesforce?”

At the time, the only tools I knew of that might be able to accomplish something like this were Jenkins and CircleCI, but these felt a little out of reach. Then I started using Gearset during our CPQ project at Cisco — and I saw the path forward. It wasn’t until my role at Intercom that I really put it all into practice.

My advice for your Salesforce DevOps journey

Here are a few principles that have guided me throughout my career:

• Stay humble, keep learning: You won’t ever know everything. Even as a principal engineer, I was learning new concepts from consultants, teammates, and my past mistakes.
• Be open to feedback: It’s not criticism — it’s growth. Defensive mindsets slow down development.
• Embrace “Flow first”: Salesforce is pushing clicks over code for a reason. Flow is incredibly powerful and often overlooked. Apex still has a place — just make it your last resort.
• Invest in yourself: Trailhead, blogs like Salesforce Ben, and webinars (like this one!) are great learning tools. DevOps Launchpad also has free Salesforce-specific DevOps courses and certifications — use them.
• Push your comfort zone: Try Git. Build your first Flow. Fail fast, learn faster — but always test before production!
• Ask for help: Whether it’s senior devs or engineers on other teams like product, platform, infra, etc., don’t go it alone. Most people are happy to help.

Ready to launch your DevOps career?

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to level up your Salesforce development skills, DevOps Launchpad is here to help. It’s a free learning hub packed with Salesforce-specific DevOps courses and certifications designed to help you grow your skills, stand out in your team, and take the next step in your career. Join thousands of Salesforce professionals who are building smarter, faster, and more resilient delivery processes — one module at a time.