How to become a Salesforce Developer
Salesforce is widely known as a leading customer relationship platform (CRM) but in reality it became a general purpose, highly scalable cloud environment with different domain products built on top of this platform. Their products help customers grow their businesses by better utilizing available data using cloud-based apps designed for marketing, sales and customer management. When looking at annual earnings report, Salesforce shows no signs of stopping and continue to grow at an astounding pace as more and more companies adopt their solutions to complete full digital transformation process. With that in mind, a position of a Salesforce Developer seems more profitable and advantageous than ever. In this article we would like to explain what Salesforce Developer is, what they really do and how to become one.
Who is Salesforce Developer?
Let’s start from the beginning. Whole Salesforce ecosystem is divided into different roles ranging from technical ones to more managerial ones. Main two are Salesforce Administrators and Developers. As an admin you don’t really deal with any programming and mostly have contact with different kinds of dashboards and other managerial tools available on the platform, but because we are more interested in technical aspects of Salesforce ecosystem, we will explore the path of becoming a Salesforce Developer. In a nutshell, Salesforce Developer is someone who develops customized solutions within the Salesforce platform, creates various apps, support critical business functions in order to meet intended project objectives. Somebody like that is constantly working in Salesforce ecosystem but don’t have to be employed by the CRM giant itself.
What does the Salesforce Developer do?
Salesforce Developer analyzes company processes and needs, developing workflows and solutions for specific businesses and custom use cases. Salesforce developers work collaboratively with others on the team to create bespoke processes and systems for the company. They have to understand how a client wants to utilize software and plan their work accordingly, identifying the intended core functionality. Salesforce Developers customize existing Salesforce systems or create completely new applications as well as plans for successful implementation and meshing them together to make a complete and cohesive system. They can suggest software updates for their customers and improve legacy systems to help with the process of full digital transformation. Salesforce developers usually work in a wide range of industries, designing and developing various business workflows and creating modern and cohesive system solutions that suits customer needs.
What skills should Salesforce Developer have?
A good Salesforce Dev should have very good computer and programming knowledge. Typically employers require higher education in a computer-related dyscipline like computer science, software engineering or mathematics/physics, as well as abilities like good teamwork, analytical and language skills. It would be also advantageous to know the industry in which you want to utilize your Salesforce skills to better understand customer requirements.
How well does it pay?
As you could imagine, a position with a lot of expectations also pays fairly well and it is also true for a Salesforce Developer. Currently market is heavily looking for new Salesforce Developers with over 65,000 job postings in the US only on LinkedIn itself. United Kingdom is no worse with over 10,000 job postings for Salesforce Devs. Overall there are over 400,000 positions for Salesforce experts in North America and over 247,000 in Western Europe. Incredible pace at which Salesforce is currently growing ensures that demand for Salesforce Developers in the future will only rise. According to Medium.com this demand is set to create 3,3 million jobs around the world in the Salesforce ecosystem by 2022 with 300,00 new jobs being created every year. Without a doubt all these factors are making Salesforce Developer one of the most lucrative career choices currently available.
What are Salesforce Certificates and how to get them?
Main credentials of a Salesforce Developer are certificates which can be obtained by passing dedicated exams. Salesforce Certificate is the complete benchmark that recognizes the skills, expertise, and real-world know-how of a practitioning Salesforce specialist.
There are 3 certifications for Salesforce Developers: Salesforce Dev I and II and Commerce Cloud Digital Developer. The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I and II credentials are designed for those who have knowledge, skills, and experience building custom declarative and programmatic apps on the Force.com platform. Salesforce Certified Commerce Cloud Digital Developer credential on the other hand, is designed for those who have knowledge and skills in using Commerce Cloud to develop eCommerce solutions.
At this point the process of learning and obtaining Salesforce Certificates may seem quite complicated and a bit confusing but luckily Salesforce provides people with various tools for pleasant and effective learning. The whole process of obtaining Salesforce Developer certification is neatly divided into 4 main phases: understanding the basics, sharpening your skills, preparation and examination. Each one has prepared materials for studying and estimated time required for completing each phase. This greatly simplifies the whole process and lets you track your progress.
One of the best Salesforce learning sources, which is also included in the useful materials for the exam, is Trailhead platform – straight from Salesforce. It can provide you with plenty of courses for different Salesforce skills and after completing them you can gain points and cool badges (some of the exams require you to have certain badges in advance so it is very important for you to get familiar with this platform). It is incredibly user-friendly with courses divided by their types, difficulty level and time required for completion.
What’s more, there is a Trailblazer community – a huge group of people and Salesforce enthusiasts who are constantly learning new stuff and sharing their progress on social media platforms who are always willing to help you. They are incredibly friendly and probably one of the coolest communities of this kind on the internet.
On the Trailhead platform there is also Trailhead Academy which delivers in-person and virtual training brought to you directly by various Salesforce experts and MVP’s. These courses are more technical and in-depth but they are crucial on the path of obtaining Salesforce credentials.
Salesforce hold annual conferences called Dreamforce which is the perfect opportunity to meet various Salesforce experts and learn directly from them. The three-day course offerings during the conference will give you in-depth knowledge of what’s possible with Salesforce and will enable you to make new friends and valuable connections among Salesforce community.
How to take Salesforce Developer Exam?
If you feel that you are well-prepared to take your Salesforce Developer test, you can schedule your exam online via Webassesor.com page. The exam itself is online-based with multiple-choice questions test (60 questions in total) and lasting for about 90 minutes. The percentage passing score is 68%, which is a minimum score for all candidates. Register fee for the examination is currently 200$. If you unfortunately fail the exam, Salesforce lets you retake in on a later date with additional fee of 100$ but before that it would be good to revise the material that you were previously struggling with. You also have to keep in mind that in order to maintain Salesforce Certification credentials, all certified Developers must successfully complete release maintenance exams specific to their certificate. Depending on your credentials, you may have anywhere from one to three release exams to complete each year.
To sum it all up, without a doubt, a position of a Salesforce Developer is one of the most lucrative career choices currently on the market. With steadily accelerating growth of Salesforce as an enterprise and incredibly high demand for new Developers, you should definitely take a closer look and consider becoming a certified Salesforce Developer. We are sure that you won’t regret it!
If you are interested in a career as a Salesforce Developer, you should check out our currently available positions.
