Salesforce is the world’s largest cloud CRM system, used by many companies globally. Delivery Hero uses Salesforce to track all interactions with our partners and customers across the world. Mantas and Goverdhan, both Salesforce developers at Delivery Hero, share their experiences of why they became Salesforce developers and what makes it so exciting to work on the Salesforce implementation at Delivery Hero.
Hello Mantas and Goverdhan, can you tell me more about how you became a Salesforce developer?
Mantas: I was introduced to Salesforce a few years ago, during an internship, when it was still a relatively new thing in Lithuania’s IT industry. As a junior developer, initially the technology didn’t seem very appealing to me, and it took some time to see the true benefits of being part of the Salesforce community. Now, I’m passionate about it and wouldn’t see my future elsewhere.
Goverdhan: I came to know Salesforce nine years ago, back in college when I was researching for my seminar on Cloud Computing. Back then it was not a famous brand. I got an opportunity to work on the platform seven years ago as my former employer realised that cloud is the future and Salesforce was probably the only cloud CRM back then.
What fascinates you about Salesforce?
Goverdhan: I like the platform. It’s very well structured and is free to learn. They provide enthusiasts with their own free learning (developer) instance. There is an easily available and well structured tutorials platform.The community is huge and Salesforce learns and improves by receiving feedback and ideas from its customers and developers. There has been no other tech company in my opinion that does all this.
Mantas: Yes, Trailhead is great and I would also like to add that Salesforce is a highly complex application that can be configured to do practically anything. It combines both front-end and back-end development, which makes it diverse and interesting to work with.
You both come from different countries, why did you decide to move to Berlin and work at Delivery Hero?
Mantas: While I had previous experience of working on projects with international corporations, Delivery Hero was the first true opportunity of learning more about Salesforce implementation on a larger scale and contributing to this process. I felt attracted to the company right off the bat, impressed by its communicative and multicultural team as well as the inclination to implement the newest Salesforce technologies. It seemed like there would be a lot of scope to grow and explore, which is essential to any developer.
Goverdhan: Berlin is a vibrant multicultural city with a lot to experience and explore. I had
previously worked in the UK for three years and visited Berlin a few times for work. I liked the work culture, work-life balance in Europe and wanted to come back here to work. It was a difficult but calculated decision for me to move to a foreign country.
I wasn’t aware of Delivery Hero as a brand before applying for a job, though I had used their services in the past. I researched about the company to find that it owns many well-known brands and operates worldwide. Moreover it is financially performing very well.
During my interviews, I gained insights on the Salesforce implementation at Delivery Hero and realised that I can help them with my experience and skills and also expand my knowledge by understanding the complex Salesforce implementation. This was all it took to convince me to move to Berlin. Delivery Hero helped me with the move not only financially but also guided me through the immigration process. What more can you expect from an employer? I moved to Berlin and on-boarded the ship.
What are the technical challenges that you are currently working on and how does your team overcome them?
Mantas: When onboarding a new restaurant or updating an existing one we use Google API for address search. This doesn’t work with Korea as they have a different address model than what Google provides. Due to inaccurate results provided by Google, sales representatives in Korea had no other choice, but to enter every address manually. To solve this, we integrate with the Daum Map API, which is a better address search engine for Korea.
The real challenge is providing a seamless experience to our markets across the world through a common UI. The address data is received in different formats based on the country but is stored in the same table and processed intelligently to provide a smooth experience to users.
Personally, I’m impressed by Delivery Hero’s Salesforce platform, its dynamic configuration and easily customizable processes. I found it very engaging and it’s fun to learn all the ins and outs.
Goverdhan: I have recently worked on data remediation for Korea. This was a challenge as we had to process ~1.500.000 data records without a system downtime. We were able to achieve this with > 99% success rate by clever planning. There was a lot of testing involved as we had to figure out and fix all scenarios which can result in failure.
My next challenge is to onboard our Hungarian (Netpincer) market onto our Salesforce instance. This would include developing their business process in our system, integrating with their backend systems and also import the data from their existing CRM system.
What does a typical day at work look like?
Goverdhan: So, it all starts with the daily status call and then we get to our assignments. There are a lot of new team members, and as such we have to collaborate a lot to understand an implementation or design a new functionality.
Mantas: As Delivery Hero Salesforce Engineer, my days are filled with interesting assignments and we work with people from many different countries. Most importantly, the company prioritizes quality, so I am able to enjoy performing tasks in a structured and detailed manner. You always feel cared for, whether it’s through providing the best equipment or taking into account the opinions of every team member.
What makes the working culture unique?
Goverdhan: Within the headquarters, we have different teams with people from diverse technical, lingual and cultural backgrounds coming together to achieve a common goal. There is a lot of space to expand my knowledge not only technologically but also culturally. Although Delivery Hero is a well-established organisation, we still work with a ‘start-up’ mindset. The teams here have been using or trying out the latest tools and techniques available out there. We are more focussed on building our own customized solutions and are exploring and innovating rather than sticking to traditional methods.
Mantas: The amount of care Delivery Hero puts into their employees, like daily fruit and vegetable baskets making sure you get your daily dose of vitamins. Dedicated resting spaces, in case you like to have a nap after lunch. Table tennis and foosball table, when you need to blow off some steam. All of this and many more benefits make it a pleasure to come every day to work.
What have been major learnings for you so far?
Goverdhan: Learning never ends and this is true within our team as well. We use various technologies and tools to achieve our goals and so there is always scope to learn more. A learning instance for me is Vue.Js framework which we use within Salesforce. This is a new and interesting domain for me. Salesforce Lightning is also practically new to me as I have not had a chance to work on it. Delivery Hero also provides free access to online learning portals where we can sharpen our skills.
Mantas: So far I was happy to learn about the workings of our delivery services and all the components that are connected to the Delivery Hero Salesforce environment. It was a pleasure learning about the way Delivery Hero developed their Salesforce processes to work with multiple countries and kept it highly customisable. Also since I’m a person that likes to learn a lot of new things, I am happy that Delivery Hero organises regular meetups on different topics and also offers a large amount of free online courses on MyAcademy.
If you are interested in joining our Salesforce team, have a look at our current positions.
Salesforce Administrator – Contact Center (f/m/d)
Salesforce Administrator – APAC (f/m/d)
Salesforce Engineering Manager – Sales Cloud (f/m/d)
Salesforce Engineering Manager – Service Cloud (f/m/d)
Salesforce Developer/Engineer (f/m/d)
Salesforce QA Engineer (f/m/d)
