Salesforce, the world leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), provides many opportunities for Salesforce careers. These specialty positions primarily include Salesforce Administrators, Salesforce Consultants and Salesforce Developers. To write this blog, we sat down with our resident Salesforce Developer Amit Joshi and asked him, “What does a Salesforce developer do?”
Are There Any Requirements for Becoming a Salesforce Developer?
“Although a higher education degree such as a college degree is not necessary to become a Salesforce Developer, an understanding of Object Oriented Programming Principles, Model-View-Controller design pattern, .NET Programming or Java is very helpful. I personally have a degree in Computer Science and Engineering with a minor in Japanese.
Salesforce offers certification programs to those looking to learn more about the different facets of Salesforce such as Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, etc. A Salesforce Developer is not required to have certifications but Salesforce certifications, certainly help in establishing credibility when looking for a job or providing qualifications to a client. I have the Salesforce Certified Developer certification. Our CTO, Mike Ravagnani has both the Salesforce Certified Developer certification as well as the Salesforce Certified Advanced Developer. The Revolution Group Salesforce Services team has a total of 7 certified developers so that we can provide the best customization experience for our customers.”
Can you list some programming languages a Salesforce Developer uses and why?
“Apex is the language that Salesforce created for developing on their platform and Visualforce is the language Salesforce uses to create user interfaces. HTML is also used for user interface development and can be interspersed with VisualForce. And lastly, JavaScript. Javascript is used heavily in the new Lightning components (the future of UI development in Salesforce).”
What are Three of Your Favorite Things About Being a Salesforce Developer?
“I love that Salesforce designed the platform with development in mind from the beginning. The platform is optimized for Developers like myself, making for a positive experience. I also enjoy the ability to customize a Salesforce environment to fit the customers’ needs with little to no restrictions. That’s really a huge benefit for us to be able to provide our clients with a solution that will grow with their company and works like they need it to. I would say my third favorite thing about being a Salesforce Developer is the ability to integrate across systems and present data in the right place at the right time using the tools and platform provided by Salesforce.
In the three years that I have been a Salesforce Developer, I’ve found that the way the Salesforce platform is setup really makes my job enjoyable.”
What is your least favorite thing about being a Salesforce Developer?
“If we’re being honest, the thing I like least about being a Developer in the Salesforce platform is that there’s not a really good IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which can make the process more tedious at times.”
Using as many specifics or examples as possible, what can a Salesforce Developer offer to a Salesforce customer?
“There are many uses for a Salesforce Developer when a customer is implementing or customizing Salesforce. First, integrations with their existing on or off premise systems. Getting these integrations right the first time will save tons of time and hassle down the road. Second, the ability to extend the platform beyond what is possible through “declarative” or point-and-click development. This includes custom reporting, automating complicated aggregations and/or business processes. A third benefit to using a Salesforce Developer is customer facing websites that do not appear to be on the Force.com platform but are integrated into it. This gives Salesforce customers a traditional website experience with whatever look, feel and branding they want while still capturing the data into Salesforce for their Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Executive teams to use as they see fit.”
If you are looking to take your Salesforce platform to the next level with custom development and tailored business solutions, call us today at 614-212-1111 or fill out the form below. Our team of highly skilled Salesforce Developers can help you unlocked greater Salesforce potential.
