What Is A Salesforce Developer? And How To Become One

Updated 16 March 2023

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Salesforce is a popular customer relationship management (CRM) tool for business use. Companies work with Salesforce developers to customise customer service software for interaction, storage and automation. If you enjoy coding and working with clients, learning about the Salesforce developer role can help you decide if this is a suitable career option for you. In this article, we answer the question, 'What is a Salesforce developer?', explain their responsibilities, outline the steps to become one, summarise their key skills and answer some frequently asked questions.

What Is A Salesforce Developer?

Understanding the answer to 'What is a Salesforce developer?' helps you consider whether you want to pursue this role. A Salesforce developer is a programmer with expertise in Salesforce, a platform for cloud-based CRM. CRM systems are software programs that handle customer interactions, store and organise customer data and automate customer relationship-related tasks. As Salesforce is customisable, it allows programmers to build unique apps for the platform and integrate various third-party applications.

Salesforce developers work with other teams, such as sales, marketing and customer support, to determine the requirements for designing or customising CRM applications for specific solutions. Writing technical documents, testing and debugging apps and assisting other developers are further common responsibilities.

What Does A Salesforce Developer Do?

A Salesforce developer is familiar with Salesforce technology and engages with clients to customise the software per their requirements. To create and customise applications, developers work with programs like Apex and Visualforce and frameworks such as Lightning Components. Salesforce developers require an understanding of the client's intended use of the software, after which they identify the essential primary features. Some of their other key duties include:

Determining user needs to test and create appropriate software
Developing efficient project planning and designing Salesforce solutions
Creating and implementing programs for the web and company intranets
Suggesting software upgrades for existing apps, programs and systems
Designing app or system components and planning how to integrate them
Addressing potential discrepancies in data quality and developing procedures to address system flaws
Leading the development of models and diagrams, such as flowcharts, to help other programmers develop software components
Documenting a company's applications and systems inventory for reference, ease of upgrading and maintenance
Ensuring normal program functioning during routine software maintenance and testing

How To Become A Salesforce Developer

Follow these steps to learn to become a Salesforce developer:

1. Complete higher secondary education

Complete your higher secondary education with subjects such as physics, chemistry and maths. You may prepare for further education by learning computer science and fundamental coding while still in school. After completing higher secondary school, you can apply for engineering college by taking a state or national engineering entrance exam.

2. Pursue a bachelor's degree

Gain a bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering or information technology after completing your secondary education. The most common qualification for Salesforce developer jobs is a bachelor's degree. A relevant engineering degree can help you demonstrate that you have the required knowledge to work as a developer.

3. Refine coding and Salesforce skills

Whatever career path you follow, programming is the most fundamental skill that Salesforce developers require. Learning to code enables you to modify the Salesforce software, add new features and fix oversights. Consider taking an online course on the platform and studying tutorials that cover Salesforce development, including the Apex programming language. To prepare you to work with Salesforce and in development, completing an internship with a software company may be beneficial.

4. Earn certificates

Certification helps demonstrate your Salesforce or programming expertise to potential employers. To obtain additional qualifications, consider completing the Salesforce formal training programme. This may help expand your understanding of Salesforce and showcase your knowledge to hiring managers. Key certifications you may consider are:

Salesforce Certified Administrator
Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator
Service Cloud Consultant
Sales Cloud Consultant

5. Create your resume

You require a strong resume to demonstrate your skills and capabilities as a Salesforce developer. You can make a powerful impression on recruiters by making it as striking as possible. Include the following sections:

Contact information
Relevant work experience
Key soft skills
Relevant technical skills
Major accomplishments

6. Apply for Salesforce developer positions

After preparing your resume, search for job openings and submit applications. Review the specific requirements of job advertisements and adjust your applications accordingly. Consult your networks to find out about employment in various companies. Practise key interview questions for Salesforce developers and prepare for practice tests, as the selection process may seek to gauge your level of technical ability.

Important Skills For A Salesforce Developer

To fulfil responsibilities effectively, the Salesforce developer role requires a combination of hard and soft skills. These skills include:

Programming

Salesforce developers require an understanding of common coding languages for developing Salesforce solutions. It is important to understand documentation and run tests to find the most efficient practice code. As Salesforce CRM often work with large amounts of data, proficiency with data structures and algorithms is also helpful.

Debugging

Debugging is a stage in software development that helps identify and fix coding flaws in programs. It involves running a program through various tools to spot bugs and using problem-solving capabilities to identify the specific cause. To make sure their code work during testing, Salesforce developers require debugging effectively. It is also beneficial to recognise problem-solving techniques so you can determine methods for eliminating faults and developing solutions.

Communication

As a Salesforce developer, you speak with clients, managers and other developers. When the client outlines their requirements, it is important that you understand what they are asking for and can convey any limitations if their approach proves challenging to implement. In such cases, it is necessary for you to communicate the issues and suggest potential solutions.

Teamwork

Working in teams requires communicating and cooperating with colleagues, which helps optimise workflow. This can create a more productive workforce, where greater numbers of individuals are working efficiently on separate areas of a project. Working with individuals from various backgrounds and educational levels can result in a growth in creative ideas and solutions.

Analytical thinking

Analytical thinking is the capacity to assess a situation and choose the most appropriate action. This helps developers to create software that best meets the requirements of their employers or clients. Salesforce specialists also require the ability to spot potential challenges early in the development process to avoid complications later on.

Testing procedures

Before launching a piece of software, it goes through several tests. A Salesforce developer ensures a program's proper functioning using various digital technologies, and this often involves testing the program's compatibility with related components. Being adept in the following three testing techniques can help programmers produce error-free code:

Unit testing
Integration testing
System testing

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some common questions about becoming a Salesforce developer:

What types of programming languages does a Salesforce developer use?

A Salesforce developer commonly uses the following programming languages:

Visualforce: This helps with front-end development. It is an extensible markup language (XML) syntax that typically helps to generate hypertext markup language (HTML).
Apex: This is an on-demand, proprietary, Java-like programming language by Salesforce that helps develop back-end operations.
Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) and Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL): These allow the developer to work with the database while building interactive features for Salesforce.

Can anyone become a Salesforce engineer?

Although a graduate degree in computer science is a common requirement, companies may favour a candidate's talents and experience over academic credentials. You may gain a strong understanding of key procedures and concepts through an undergraduate degree, but you may also choose to enrol on online Salesforce certification programmes to learn to code, test and debug software. It may be possible to gain these abilities and apply for entry-level employment without a software engineering degree if you have the aptitude and enthusiasm.

Is a Salesforce developer a good career option?

Salesforce users are growing rapidly, and businesses are increasingly looking to hire developers. If working with Salesforce and writing code interests you, this might be a good career option. After securing an entry-level position, there are good prospects for advancement to a senior Salesforce developer or architect position.

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