There are too many Salesforce clouds to be a master of all of them. When someone specializes in a single cloud or platform, and knows it in incredible detail, they are called a Subject Matter Expert (SME).
SMEs are important to have in a project when a very granular level of detail is needed. They are usually called in to resolve a particular issue or to advise, and then move to the next project. As such, SMEs tend to work on multiple projects simultaneously.
The most popular types of SMEs focus on CPQ, FSL, and SFMC. But they can also specialize in a complex package such as Fonteva or NPSP.
Aside from knowing their speciality, SMEs need to be able to communicate well with the client, to explain complexity using simple language. It doesn’t serve anyone when a SME knows everything there is to know, but cannot effectively share their knowledge.
The takeaway
I affectionately label SMEs as tech ninjas. They are surgical with their work, offer multiple solutions to a single problem, follow through to make sure the issue was resolved, and then poof, they vanish.