Maternity Leave to All-Star Ranger

Hello, my name is Emily and I have been working in the Salesforce ecosystem since 2017. I have 7 certifications and am very active on trailhead, with over 300 badges and over 20 super badges.

In September 2025, I went on maternity leave and whilst having my Son has been the most amazing experience of my life, part of me has been filled with dread about returning to work and being completely out of touch with the Salesforce ecosystem.

Taking a year out of work to have a baby already sets thousands of women back in their careers each year (all be it a fair trade off if you choose/want to have children).

With my experience as a woman working in tech, not only have I been set back in relation to time and confidence by taking a year out with somebody else doing my job (that is also being paid more than I am), I have also been set back in my product knowledge fuelled by the vast developments in technology over the past 8 months. I have not had the time to keep up to date with Salesforce releases and keep up with my learning. It absolutely terrifies me when I see posts on linked in about new features that I have no clue about, and I feel physically sick when I think of my return to work. We all know how quickly things move on in the Salesforce ecosystem, especially at the moment with the development of Agentforce, I recently learned that topics are now called sub agents!

In a field that is already so male dominated, maternity leave within Technology and particularly the Salesforce ecosystem is putting women at an even greater disadvantage than other industries on their return purely because of how quickly things move on in the time they are off!

I had this vision….

For the remaining months of my maternity leave, whilst my son naps or my Husband takes over, I will use my time to study on Trailhead, complete Badges, Trails, Superbadges, even some Quests and learn about all the new features so that when I return to work I am, if anything ahead of where I was before I went on maternity leave.

I will document my progress, give honest feedback on what I complete and how helpful modules were, and how I am navigating being a new mother and trying to study.

My aim is to become an All Star Ranger on trailhead! I understand learning is a long process so I may not become an All Star Ranger by the time I return to work. But I will keep documenting my progress until I get there.

The purpose of this blog is to try and show people that maternity leave doesn’t mean you have to take a back seat in your Salesforce Career, but I also want to give people the space to know they are not alone in what can feel like an amazing but overwhelming and uncertain time in their Salesforce careers.

Follow for regular updates on my journey!