How to Become a Salesforce Developer Tutorial: Perfect Guide [STEP-IN]

Last updated on 10th Jul 2020, Blog, Tutorials

Salesforce is a leading CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software which is served from the cloud. It has more than 800 applications to support various features like generating new leads, acquiring new leads, increasing sales and closing the deals. It is designed to manage the organization’s data focused on customer and sales details. It also offers features to customize its inbuilt data structures and GUI to suit the specific needs of a business. More recently, it has started offering the IOT (internet of things) connectivity to the CRM platform.

Salesforce started as a cloud based solution for CRM. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It involves managing all aspects of relationship between an organization and its customers. For example, the contact details of the customer, the deals that are in progress or already completed, the support requests from a customer or a new lead from a new customer. Beyond the customer related information, it also involves storing and managing the details of the people and the concerned department from the seller organization that is managing the customer’s account and needs. This makes it easy to manage and enhance the relationship with the customer and hence better growth for the organization.

Following are the different features of the Salesforce platform :

Contact Management

To view customer contact details, activity history, customer communications, and internal account discussions, etc. In short, it manages all the data pertaining to the contact with a customer.

Opportunity Management

It provides the details of the stage a deal is in, the products involved in the deal, the quotation for the deal etc. In short it manages all the data that helps in identifying, progressing and closing a deal.

Salesforce Engage

This feature is focused on making personalized contact with a customer for various campaigns designed by the marketing team. It also provides real-time sales alerts based on the level of engagement with a customer.

Sales Collaboration

This feature helps in quickly finding experts who can help in closing a deal based on customer queries and feedback. In short, it helps in bringing in a collaborative effort to engage an entire team in the deal and make the deal happen.

Sales Performance Management

It provides a metric-based goal setting, and also continuous feedback and rewards and recognition for the sales team. This helps in enhancing the performance of the sales team.

Lead Management

This feature initiates and tracks the leads that are in progress. It also helps in continually optimizing campaigns across every channel.

Partner Management

This feature helps in building a community with partners. It also helps in connecting directly with channel partners to share goals, objectives, and activities.

Salesforce Mobile App

This is the mobile platform to carry out all the above activities on a mobile platform.

Workflow and Approvals

It is a visual design to automate the business processes. The interface provides simple drag and drop options to make this design. It helps in creating a flexible approval process with deal discounts and expense management etc.

Email Integration

Salesforce can integrate to an existing email platform. This helps in providing flexibility to the existing team with no additional learning curve.

Files Sync and Share

This feature provides the sales team the power to easily share various files, discuss them and update them as needed. Also receive alerts when something in the file changes.

Reports and Dashboards

Dashboards offer a real-time picture of the business at a glance. With this, anyone can create detailed reports which can be accessed from anywhere.

Sales Forecasting

This feature helps in getting a real time view of the forecast of a sales team. It provides multi-currency support and an in-line editing mode to manage the sales forecast well.

Territory Management

This feature is used to create multiple territory models, preview them before roll out, and continually optimize and balance territories throughout the year.

why Salesforce Developer is such a fantastic career option?

The fact that Salesforce roles so often get shout-outs like these is indicative of the amazing opportunity they present, and clearly, Salesforce development especially is a strong choice right now. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why Salesforce Developer is such a fantastic career option.

1. Work with a world-dominating technology

Salesforce is the world’s leading CRM platform. It’s posted an average year-on-year growth of 25% for the past four years, and has ambitious plans to double its growth over the next four.

And a major part of that growth is going to be the creation of new Salesforce positions—an estimated 3.3 million new jobs by 2022, to be exact.

As digital transformation continues to roll across the world, leaving no industry untouched, the demand for cloud professionals is set to skyrocket, and those with experience in developing the world’s most popular CRM will be massively sought after.

2. Enjoy extensive job opportunities

Demand for Salesforce professionals is increasingly rapidly; far more quickly than the workforce can upskill to meet it.

As a result, the Salesforce job market is a candidate’s paradise; a buffet of opportunity where Salesforce Developer roles outnumber talent 4:1.

An average of 390 new Salesforce Dev positions are created every month in North America, and as businesses compete to attract the best talent, qualified developers have plenty of leverage to negotiate the salary, benefits package, and working conditions they’re looking for.

A recent report summed up the wealth of opportunities for Salesforce Developers, stating that “workers with Salesforce Developer skills will be able to work where they want and for high pay.”

3. Be involved with an exciting, innovative platform

Salesforce has been around for two decades, but it’s showing no signs of standing still.

Salesforce releases updates and rolls out innovative new features three times a year. The set of tools available to Developers is constantly evolving too, ensuring Salesforce is always at the forefront of new advances and trends. Salesforce is all about making its customers’ lives easier, so whatever’s making waves in tech, you can be sure the Salesforce team is hustling to incorporate it into the platform. Whether that’s AI, blockchain, or serverless computing, Salesforce Developers are never at the back of the line when it comes to getting access to these cutting-edge developments so they can put them to work in their own organizations.

As a Salesforce Developer, you don’t have to concern yourself with the underlying infrastructure you’re building on. Its single codebase makes it easy for devs to focus solely on apps and data, safe in the knowledge that new features will just work. That means you have space to take a business-led approach to solutions, think outside the box, and flex your creative muscles.

4. Be part of an inclusive community

Salesforce has been named in the top ten companies to work for in each of the past four years. The company was named one of Forbes’s World’s Most Innovative Company eight years in a row and came in second on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For® list.

But it’s not just the pros working at its headquarters that Salesforce is committed to offering a rewarding and fulfilling career.

The Salesforce ecosystem is notoriously welcoming, helpful, and collaborative. Known as the Ohana, the Salesforce community consists of internal employees, those who work for customers, partners, or ISVs, and freelance Salesforce pros.

Being part of the Ohana is all about sharing the culture that Salesforce is built on, and embodying trust, growth, innovation and equality in your everyday life. If you work with Salesforce, you’ll never be short of guidance, support, or a sense of kinship.

Salesforce has long been committed to making the world a better place, and a big part of that mission has been to foster equality in tech, making sure that the incredible opportunities offered to those working with the platform are available to everyone.

And it’s undoubtedly out-striding many of its peers in the tech sphere on the diversity and inclusion front. According to our latest salary survey, women made up a third of the Salesforce ecosystem; a significantly higher percentage than the industry average.

In 2015, Salesforce invested around $3 million into reviewing, analyzing, and amending salaries to eliminate pay disparity. There are also a huge number of groups committed to supporting women in the community, providing peer-to-peer mentorship and hosting user groups around the world.

The payoff the ecosystem has seen off the back of this commitment to equality is evident. In the tech industry at large, the percentage of female developers is in the single digits. In Salesforce, women make up 20% of developers, and 45% of system administrators.

5. Access to heaps of training opportunities

Salesforce is renowned for having one of the most comprehensive training offerings in tech; and it’s free. Trailhead is an online learning platform through which budding Salesforce experts can upskill in their own time, at their own place, while connecting to a vast community of their fellow learners for advice and support.

Whether you’re coming to Salesforce completely green, or you want to learn new skills and advance your Salesforce career, Trailhead offers dedicated learning paths for every experience level, every product, and every job role.

Trailhead users can receive points, collect badges, and if they want to beef up their resumes, earn official certifications—certifications that are highly valued by employers and can give your pay packet a serious boost.

Salesforce is a solution that’s always evolving, and by creating Trailhead, the company has committed to helping the community grow alongside it.

6. High earning potential

Last, but certainly not least, is the enormous earning potential that Salesforce Developers enjoy. With Salesforce customers and partners alike in constant competition for the best talent, the ecosystem’s supply and demand problem is driving up wages.

The average salary for a software developer in the US is around $85,500. Salesforce developers, on the other hand, earn between $111,232 and $161,418m depending on experience, according to our latest salary survey.

Hourly rates for freelance Salesforce Developers are impressive too, with contractors commanding between $70 and $155 per hour on average.

Specializing in certain aspects of Salesforce, like Sales Cloud or Visual force, for example, can boost your earning potential further, and netting certifications can have a positive impact on your worth as a professional too.

7. Multiple routes into the ecosystem

A lot of people see tech as a super niche career, available only to a chosen few, but actually, Salesforce is far more accessible than you might think.

There’s a common misconception about coding that you have to be some sort of math whiz to be good at it. But especially with today’s cloud-based platforms, that’s just not true.

With so much free training on offer through the likes of Trailhead, there are very few barriers to a career in Salesforce, even if you’re looking to land a technical role like developer or architect.

Salesforce Developers use an object-oriented programming language called Apex, which is similar to Java or C#. If you have experience with these languages, or knowledge of SQL or HTML, you’ve already got a significant head start when learning to develop Salesforce apps.

8. Salesforce Certified Sales Cloud Consultant:

Salesforce Sales Cloud Consultants design solutions for optimization of sales processes. Their average salary in India as per pay scale reports is about ₹8,26,000 per year while in US it is found to be $95,000 per year.

• Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant:

The Salesforce CRM is engaged with assorted cloud services among which Salesforce Service Cloud is one. Consultants engaged with this service help in designing service solutions for the respective cloud functions. Average pay scale of Salesforce Service Cloud Consultants in India and US is ₹8,82,000 and $101,000 per year respectively.

• Salesforce Certified Technical Architect:

A Salesforce technical architect deals with designing the systems which enable long-term benefits for your company. He or she is also engaged in integration and testing of the applications, data modelling and migration, and controlling the source.An average salary of Salesforce Certified Technical Architect in US is about $150,000 per year.

• Salesforce Developer:

Working with in-depth coding essentialities is the important and primary responsibility of a Salesforce developer. Advanced cloud solutions have become popular because of the perfection in development teams. Salesforce developers strive hard to work with Apex, VisualForce, Triggers, and other development tools for effective deliveries. Proficiency in technical programming languages is a very big plus point for Salesforce developers. Customized CRM application development, integration of Salesforce with other tools, and designing appropriate data models are some of the duties of Salesforce developers

• Salary of Salesforce Developer:

With their tedious task involvement,Salesforce developers are offered salaries in the range of ₹4 lakh to ₹7 lakh per annum. As discussed, this also varies with the recognized companies. The average salary of a Salesforce developer in India is ₹4,86,992 per annum (according to payscale reports). Certification in Salesforce development, therefore, presumes more salaries when compared to non-certification basis. Starting salaries for Salesforce developers are ₹12,000 to ₹36,000 per month.

The average salary of a Salesforce developer in US is about $87,000 per year; the starting salary is $47,000 per year. The certified professionals of Salesforce developers and Salesforce administrators with adequate experience are found to get $90,000 to $125,000 per year in US.

• Salary of Salesforce Administrator:

In India, the average salary of a Salesforce Administrator is found to be around ₹3.5 lakh to ₹5 lakh per year. However, there are changes in salaries with respect to the companies and experience too. The average salary of Salesforce Administrators in India is ₹4,32,767 per year (according to payscale reports). Small-sized companies do offer lesser salaries when compared to larger ones. Moreover, the experience in administration also matters. The starting range for a fresher will be around ₹15,000 to ₹30,000 per month – this is also varied depending on the company.

The average salary of a certified Salesforce admin in US is $64,000 per year. However, the starting salary ranges from $40,000 to $95,000 per year based on the company’s brand.

• Salesforce Consultant:

Salesforce consultants help an organization in setting up, implementation, configuration and maintenance of Salesforce platform. They manage the client relationships, engage in status meetings with clients, and improve product configuration. They play a key role in driving the project from design to deployment stages.

• Salary of Salesforce Consultant:

In India, the average salary of Salesforce consultants is found to be ₹8,28,314 as per the payscale survey. It ranges from ₹3 lakh to ₹13 lakh per year based on the company, location, and experience.

The average salary of Salesforce consultants in US is $80,545 per year. The salary ranges are found to be from $55,647 to $125,359 per year.

Salesforce job description: What do the Salesforce developers do?

The first question that might arise here is what are the duties or the responsibilities of the Salesforce developer? Well, to start with; there are many. There are certain commitments that one needs to make before qualifying as a developer for Salesforce.

Develop solutions within the Salesforce platform to assist critical business functions and fulfill venture objectives, client specifications, and company goals. To be able to first maintain the CRM model.

Manage daily assistance and maintenance of inner Salesforce instance, and conduct long-term improvement functions to make a sure interface with evolving objective requirements is fulfilled and also to be able to fulfill complete demands of the company with the tool.

Communicate with venture supervisors, customers, and other developers to design natural venture strategies and make sure effective cooperation throughout all stages of growth, testing and deployment.

Maintain a flexible and proactive workplace to facilitate a quick response to changing venture specifications and client objectives, and innovate ways to fulfill objective objectives successfully.   

Interact directly with customers, supervisors and end users as necessary to evaluate venture objectives and capability specifications, such as specifications for customer connections, personalized programs and communications with inner Salesforce instances. This primarily comes under the ‘survey’ part.

Collaborate with various inner departments, such as marketing, service, and processes, to make sure Salesforce atmosphere supports inner needs relating to functionality and performance so that everything is understood and studied. 

The only thing more essential to your developing agents than Sales team is a Salesforce developer who can develop and primarily design personalized structure for the tool to boost the utilization and effectiveness within your sales team. Being that designer, though, can feel like an exercise in futility or sightless luck, but it doesn’t have to. You can take the unique chance out of yourself, and a master at the job at hand of being a developer that focuses on promoting unique ideas and customized strategies for the company you plan to work with.

Salesforce developer salary: Comparing it with US and India:

India: The average salary of a Salesforce developer in India is surveyed out to be 6 lakhs per annum! It is not something that really can be stated downright, but after a lot of studies depending upon the experience of the developer, the knowledge and certifications he or she has and the company he or she is associated with; this is the amount that can be figured out in India.

There usually has to be a situation where you have tremendous knowledge and innovative ideas for the firm, and the firm too should be in need of it. Only then the per annum income can go up to about 15 lakhs per annum. Without a win to win situation, the average salary can be very well assumed to be less than 10 lakhs per annum in India.

USA: USA has a different scenario for the Salesforce developer, undoubtedly. The demand for them and the perfection from the developer’s side to facilitates why the average income of the developers of Salesforce in USA is much more as compared to the ones here. Here, in India, you need to be extraordinarily extraordinary to be able to bag what a normal Salesforce developer makes up in USA.

The amount is unbelievably around $78,000 or in terms of Indian currency, it comes out to be 50 lakhs per annum! That’s a whopping amount for a Salesforce developer in India. This also is a reason that the values of dollars and currencies are pretty different that leads up to this huge difference in numbers! 

Salary for Certification in India: Salesforce Certified Developer

₹655,338

Avg. SalaryShow Hourly Rate

What am I worth?

Get pay report

How should I pay?

Price a job

Job

Average

₹185k

₹2m

Salesforce Developer

₹557k

Software Engineer

₹481k

Senior Software Engineer

₹815k

Salesforce Developer Training:

When it comes to training, one has to be cautious about the following aspects and see if the vendor has abilities to train:

• First and foremost, experience resources
• Practical exposure for the candidates to understand Salesforce and experience real-time scenario, by conducting a mock project.
• The training schedule should be flexible enough so that it includes both theory and practical sessions for the candidates.
• The mode of training, i.e. option for the candidates to attend the training. Online vs in-person classroom training.
• Evaluation process in between the training schedule, this will help the candidate to make sure that they are in sync with the training schedule.
• Ability to get support 24/7
• Should have a provision where they can take up a demo session for the candidates and let them see the value.

These are few qualities that one must go through and check whether the vendor fulfills all the qualities and the requirements. Mindmajix is one perfect solution for all of your training needs because they go above and beyond the expectations. They have a perfect mix of certified and industry expert’s trainers where they take personal care to make sure you excel in the courses that you have opted.

The self-evaluation process is an integral part within MindMajix training sessions. As per the schedule and the training sessions, the candidates are equally assessed based on what has been thought so far. This creates a moment of an evaluation process for the candidates and makes them go through the training course a bit more serious.

The timing is not an issue when you are getting trained with us. We will make sure that you have an expert trainer available for you all the time. With the help of virtual class’s mode, we will make sure that your training sessions are flexible according to your schedule. All we look for is a stable mind and concentration so that the training program is well executed without any disturbances.

Get in touch with us to understand more about the training schedules and also the flexible hour’s packages so that you’re training sessions are not compromised at all. If you have any questions on any of the training programs then contact us and our experts will get back to you answering all of your questions.

New Salesforce Developer Certifications

As a solution to all this confusion surrounding the role of a Salesforce developer and the skills they possess – Salesforce has introduced 3 new Salesforce developer certifications. The introduction of these 3 novel Salesforce developer certification is a boon to the employers as it combats the problems employers faced when hiring Salesforce developers. The new developer certification structure helps professionals advance through the Salesforce platform in a step by step manner- beginning from the declarative certification (Platform App Builder) to  Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I (Programmatic)  and Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II (Advanced Programmatic concepts). Professionals who already have established credentials with DEV 401 and DEV 501 can take a free transition exam to earn Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I and Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II certifications.

New Salesforce developer certifications are now classified into two broad categories –

• Declarative  Salesforce Developer Certification
• Programmatic Salesforce Developer Certification

Salesforce Developer 401 Certification has changed to “Salesforce Certified App Builder”

The new Salesforce developer certification mainly focuses on testing the declarative customization skills of the professional on the Salesforce platform i.e. the skills to create, manage and update data models, business logic, process automation and application securities. Salesforce certified App Builder certification bridges the gap between an administrator and a programmer. “Salesforce Certified App Builder” includes all the earlier concepts of DEV 401 certification but adds some new features and functionalities of visual workflow, process builder, lightning and mobile. Salesforce Certified App Builder certification also evaluates the knowledge on App deployment. It includes a section on app deployment lifecycle in an enterprise environment. Thus, professionals taking the Salesforce Certified App Builder certification must have knowledge of the standard app lifecycle, change sets, managing deployments between various environments, and the use of managed and unmanaged packages.

For professionals who have already earned the Salesforce DEV 401 certification, Salesforce.com offers a transition exam to the certified professionals. With the DEV 401 credentials, professionals can take the transition exam and upgrade their certification to “Salesforce Certified App Builder”.

• Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I
• Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II

Salesforce DEV 501 Advanced Developer Certification changed to “Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I/II”

The advanced Salesforce developer certification is replaced with two new programmatic developer certifications –

Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I is a multiple choice exam that tests the ability of a professional to develop interfaces and custom business logic by extending the Salesforce platform through VisualForce and Apex. Professionals with at least 6 months of experience on the Force.com platform can take this Salesforce certification.

Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II is similar to the Salesforce DEV 501 certification exam, as it includes a multiple choice exam and a programming assignment. Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II tests the knowledge on advanced programmatic capabilities of a professional on the Force.com platform to develop complex business logic. Professionals should be able to model, design, develop, test and deploy programmatic solutions that follow best object oriented programming practices, Apex design patterns and can be reused. To take this Salesforce certification, professionals must have at least 2 years of experience working on the force.com platform.

Professionals who have earlier cleared the Salesforce Certified DEV 501 Advanced Developer certification multiple choice exam and the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer 1 transition exam, can level up in Salesforce development. These professionals can take the multiple choice transition exam and the programming assignment to earn Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II certification.

Conclusion

The record-level access controls at the heart of the Lightning Platform are extremely flexible and powerful, and serve the collaboration and security needs of all customers—from those working in small sales teams to those working in very large enterprises. With the knowledge and features described in this paper, Salesforce developers and administrators can optimize system performance while continuing to deliver the flexibility their companies require in access control.