What is a Salesforce Developer?
Explore how to become a developer in the Salesforce ecosystem and what it means. Dive into the role, responsibilities, and the necessary skills to have a career path as a Salesforce developer.
Salesforce helps more than 150,000 customers in every industry connect with their customers. People around the world rely on Salesforce's Platform to keep their businesses running effectively and efficiently. Developers who work with Salesforce solve complex problems for customers using both code and Salesforce's no-code tools.
Here, we're talking about all the developers who work with Salesforce technologies to build solutions for our customers and partners. Salesforce, of course, employs a lot of developers who build our products. If that sounds more like you, check out our engineering blog. But because we run Salesforce on Salesforce, much of what you read here might still apply.
How developers work in the world of Salesforce
With Salesforce, you can build solutions using a combination of no-code tools and low-code. The right tools for the right task. We call this low-code development. Through no-code customisations, developers solve some requirements without coding. This means when they do code, they end up writing less repetitive or boilerplate code.
Salesforce products are expansive, covering sales, service, marketing, analytics, commerce, and more. Every part of Salesforce exposes APIs. Developers use these to create web apps on Heroku , improve their integration with MuleSoft , extend Slack or Tableau , or even customise one of the standard applications. With tools like Code Builder, a web-based integrated development environment (IDE) that simplifies and streamlines the development process, it is accessible for any developer to be a Salesforce developer.
What does a developer do with Salesforce?
Most developers who work with Salesforce technologies build custom enterprise applications and AI agent solutions. They do this either with the Agentforce 360 Platform (including Agentforce Sales, Agentforce Service, Data 360, and Experience Cloud communities) or with Heroku. To support this, Salesforce offers no-code and vibe-code tools that democratise AI development, making it easier for developers to move from idea to impact. While some developers specialise, most fit the description of full-stack developers working with both back-end logic and front-end experiences.
Beyond the Agentforce 360 Platform, there are many other opportunities for developers in the world of Salesforce. Some build custom marketing experiences on Agentforce Marketing. Others dive deep into data and expose new insights with Tableau. There are developers building engaging commerce experiences with Agentforce Commerce. Others cultivate easy collaboration through custom Slack apps, and some developers use the drag-and-drop app builders to create quick solutions, each approach offering flexibility based on needs.
Salesforce technologies offer opportunities for developers to work with every aspect of business applications.
Seamlessly build your Agentforce with low-code tools.
Which skills does a developer need to work with Salesforce?
Code is the stock-in-trade of every developer, so you might wonder which programming languages you'll use. A lot depends on which part of the Salesforce world you choose to work in.
The two most prominent languages in the Salesforce world are JavaScript and Apex . JavaScript is, of course, the language used for front-end customisations as surfaced through Lightning Web Components. Apex is the most widely adopted back-end language in the Salesforce ecosystem, and it's used in many different features of the platform, like Prompt Builder or Agentforce.
The Salesforce Platform also has two domain-specific query languages. Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) is an SQL-like query language for accessing data in the Salesforce multitenant database. Salesforce Object Search Language (SOSL) is a text-based search language that can be used to find both data and documents stored on the platform.
In addition to the Salesforce Platform, certain products support other languages. Both Python and JavaScript are supported languages for the Slack Bolt SDK and TypeScript is also available on the Deno Slack SDK. For customised marketing experiences, you can use AMPscript for Agentforce Marketing. If you build integrations with MuleSoft, your data transformations can be written in DataWeave. If you work with dashboards in Salesforce CRM Analytics, you might use the Salesforce Analytics Query Language (SAQL) to fine-tune visualisations. And, our hyperscale data engine, Data 360, gives you the option to access its data using SQL.
Developers can also create sandbox development environment within Salesforce. This is an isolated, secure replica of your production environment. It's a space to test and refine solutions before deploying them. Whatever your technical interests are, Salesforce's broad and diverse language options means that there are a variety of areas to specialise in.
Learn how to deliver new levels of personalisation and responsiveness with Salesforce DevSecOps.
Because Salesforce offers no-code customisations, every developer working in the Salesforce ecosystem will end up learning how to use the no-code tools that support their work, too. For instance, certain features that can be complex to implement, like wizards, data security rules, and basic user interface (UI) customisations, can all be accomplished without coding at all.
Developers with previous experience in enterprise app development or DevOps tools tend to make the easiest transition to working in the world of Salesforce. But this is by no means a requirement. Again, any developer can become a Salesforce developer. Many have joined directly from college or moved over from other software engineering experiences.
What are the career prospects for a developer who works with Salesforce?
As the ecosystem around Salesforce grows, developers continue to be highly sought after. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , software developers have a 17% job outlook through 2033, which is considered much faster than average.
Developers often come to Salesforce as a career opportunity. Once here, many get hooked on the friendly support of the Salesforce Developer Community. You can also connect, share ideas, and build your skills through local, in-person meetups.
Join the conversation virtually with developers every day through the Salesforce Developers group in the Trailblazer Community on Trailhead—Salesforce's free online learning platform. Take your learning and networking even further by attending one of the community conferences found all over the world.
Which credentials and certifications are relevant for the job?
As a developer, you want to work with the most relevant technologies, languages, and platforms. No language is more universally relevant today than JavaScript. You can show your JavaScript competence by earning the JavaScript Developer 1 Certification. This certification tests your knowledge of JavaScript in the browser and in NodeJS.
While used to validate the skills of many candidates in the Salesforce ecosystem, because it's focussed on universal knowledge, any company can use this certification when looking to hire a JavaScript developer.
To demonstrate your competence in developing with Salesforce Platform-specific features, tools, and technologies, you can pursue several paths. To learn about all the platform features that require no coding, you can take the Platform App Builder Certification . For developers focussing on mobile-first solutions, expertise with the mobile app builder can be an invaluable addition.
Learn how to protect sensitive data in sandbox environments.
Data integration
To show knowledge and understanding of different programming features, earn your Platform Developer 1 Certification (PD1) . Once you have your PD1, you can go further by pursuing the practical, hands-on Platform Developer 2 Certification .
In addition to these core Salesforce Platform certifications, you can also pursue specialist certifications in products such as:
- OmniStudio Developer : Develop cloud applications using OmniStudio declarative development tools.
- Industries CPQ Developer : Develop configure, price, quote (CPQ) applications for the Agentforce 360 for Communications, Media, and Energy & Utilities.
- B2C Commerce Developer : Customise Salesforce Commerce through configurations, user management, and development with the Salesforce B2C Commerce Digital platform.
- Marketing Cloud Developer : Create personalised, dynamic messages and landing pages using Agentforce Marketing scripting languages, data configuration, manipulations, and advanced segmentation, as well as reporting and analytics.
- Slack Certified Developer : Build interactive apps on the Slack platform.
- MuleSoft Developer Certifications : Build, test, and deploy APIs and integrations using the MuleSoft platform.
Embarking on your developer career journey
As a developer, you hold some of the most sought-after skills in every industry. Every business needs technical experts to turn their requirements for business applications, integrations, and customer-facing websites into experiences that deliver what their users and customers need.
You might have long-standing experience developing on other platforms or working with deployment environments. You might just be launching your career. You might be somewhere in between. Whatever the case, there are many paths for you to become a developer in the Salesforce ecosystem.
If this has you excited to learn more, the Salesforce Developers website is a great place to start. You can also learn about the latest developer features through our Salesforce Developers blog or YouTube channel . And to stay connected, follow Salesforce Developers on LinkedIn , and connect with fellow developers through the Salesforce Developers Trailblazer Community Group on Trailhead.
FAQ Trusted AI
The goal is to deploy AI that is ethical, accurate, and safe for human users. However, achieving this manually is incredibly difficult. The Agentforce 360 Platform simplifies this by embedding trust directly into the infrastructure, ensuring that every AI action is governed, audit-ready, and aligned with safety principles by default.
A prime example is an autonomous service agent resolving complex claims without human intervention, yet staying perfectly compliant. This is achieved using the Agentforce 360 Platform, which orchestrates these workflows. It allows you to deploy agents that are autonomous enough to be useful, but governed enough to be safe.
Absolutely. Trusted AI isn't about replacing humans; it's about empowering them. The Agentforce 360 Platform is designed to hand off to a human seamlessly when a situation gets too complex or sensitive. It ensures that AI handles the drudgery while your people handle the empathy and high-value decisions.
Bias is a data problem. If you feed an AI a bad context, you get bad results. The Agentforce 360 Platform mitigates this with dynamic grounding and toxicity detection. It scans AI outputs in real-time to catch and block harmful content before it ever reaches your customer's screen.
Paradoxically, high security usually slows things down, but not here. Because the Agentforce 360 Platform is a low-code environment with pre-built security components, developers can build and deploy trusted AI agents significantly faster than if they had to code the security layers themselves.
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