Salesforce skills and certification create exciting employment opportunities. On the technical side, careers as a Salesforce Developer and also a Technical Architect are accessible with the right training and experience.
Salesforce skills lead to competitive salaries: a Salesforce developer salary is on average $125,000, and a Technical Architect has an average salary of $150,000.
OpenClassrooms and Salesforce have directly collaborated to create the OpenClassrooms Salesforce Developer Path designed to prepare students to pass the examination to obtain their Salesforce Platform Developer Certification.
You can see the partnership announcement here!
This learning path is highly recommended for those who want to work with Salesforce software and position themselves to be competitive. Keep reading to learn more about Salesforce Developers and how to become one with OpenClassrooms.
Is there a call for Salesforce skills?
Yes! 3.3 million jobs will be created by Salesforce and the broader ecosystem by 2022. Burning Glass Technologies (a labor-market analysis firm) researched the demand for Salesforce jobs and in 2017 found that positions requiring Salesforce skills were growing faster than overall job postings and these jobs paid more than jobs that don’t require Salesforce skills.
What is a Salesforce Developer?
A Salesforce developer is a highly specialized software developer, because of this they earn more money than regular developers. You can learn more about the Salesforce cloud-based CRM Platform here.
Salesforce developers fundamentally work with code. However, a part of any Salesforce professional’s job is also to be able to use the Salesforce software. This means, due to their Salesforce training, they’ll need to be able to understand the Platform in addition to writing the code behind it.
Salesforce developers build functionality by creating Salesforce triggers and create interfaces based on customer requirements.
People can be hired through Salesforce to work for the companies using their platform. You can work for the companies using Salesforce directly, or work as a freelance Salesforce developer.
The technical and specialized skills most frequently requested by employers for the role are: Salesforce, Apex, Lightning, Java, JavaScript, Bootstrap, SQL, and web services.
The soft skills most frequently requested by employers for this role are: communication, writing, problem-solving, organization, project management, customer service, teamwork, and creativity.
How do developers use and benefit from the Salesforce platform?
Salesforce explains this perfectly on their website:
“The Salesforce Platform empowers developers to quickly build and deploy trusted cloud applications that are rock solid, secure, and scalable without worrying about hardware provisioning or application stacks. To get started immediately, the Platform delivers out-of-the-box tools and services to automate your business processes, integrate with external applications, provide responsive layouts and more”.
What levels of Salesforce qualifications are there?
Trailhead badges represent what you’ve learned.
Superbadges prove that you can take what you’ve learned and apply it to solve complex, real-world business problems. Developer examples are: Apex Specialist Superbadge, Data Integration Specialist Superbadge, and Lightning Experience Specialist Superbadge.
A Salesforce Certification is the highest qualification available and demonstrates your overall expertise in a specific role. It is the most effective way of standing out when applying for defined jobs and projects, and employers will specifically seek it out. Indeed, once certified (and if up to date) you will be on a database which is readily searchable by prospective employers.
You obtain a Salesforce Certification by sitting an exam.
One of the certifications is the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I. This is one of the two Salesforce certifications that the OpenClassrooms Salesforce Developer Path helps students to prepare for.
Now to go into more detail about what the Salesforce Certification requires and the OpenClassrooms learning path:
What is the Salesforce Platform Developer I Certification?
To achieve the status of Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I, you have to successfully pass the exam, and to do so there is a certain level of study and experience that is needed. You will need to obtain experience developing and deploying basic business logic and user interfaces using the programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform.
To pass the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I exam, Salesforce recommends that you generally need 1-2 years experience as a developer and at least six months experience on the Lightning Platform.
The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I exam is comprised of 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions, to be answered within 110 minutes. The passing score is 65%. At the point of writing, the Salesforce registration fee is USD 200, and the retake fee is USD 100 (both figures are plus applicable taxes as required by local law).
Why should I study with the OpenClassrooms Learning Pathway to learn the Salesforce-specific skillset?
The OpenClassrooms Salesforce Developer Path prepares you to take and pass the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer I exam and is the best route to becoming a Salesforce developer. It will also prepare you for the Salesforce Administrator exam as all the competencies necessary to pass the Salesforce Administrator exam are covered within the program, as well.
Salesforce says you need 1-2 years of experience, but the OpenClassrooms learning path, specifically designed in collaboration with Salesforce, will skillfully guide you to the required level in an average of 12 months without any prior developer experience.
During the program, you will complete professional projects and learn on courses comprising of videos and text. Throughout the program you will be accompanied by a mentor who is a professional in your field of study during weekly one-on-one video chats. And you’ll have access to a thriving online community of students and professionals.
At the end of the OpenClassrooms Salesforce Developer Path, you will acquire all the skills you need to be a regular developer, in addition to learning Salesforce-specific skill sets to pass the exam (if you wish to obtain their accreditation). Salesforce requires the following experience, skills, and knowledge for their certification – so you can be confident that at the conclusion of your OpenClassrooms Salesforce Developer Path you will:
- Be able to use the key programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform to develop custom interfaces to extend Salesforce capabilities and develop custom business logic.
- Be able to extend the Lightning Platform using Apex and Visualforce, and understands Lightning Components.
- Be familiar with, and able to leverage relevant declarative capabilities of the platform, where appropriate.
- Know when to use declarative vs. programmatic methods.
- Be familiar with the development lifecycle from development to testing, and know the available environments.
- Be familiar with the Salesforce Mobile app capabilities and the basics of the Lightning framework.
- Know when to use the Lightning Process Builder vs. an Apex trigger.
- Have experience with object-oriented languages such as Java, JavaScript, C#, Ruby, and .NET.
- Have experience with data-driven applications and relational databases.
- Have experience with Model View Controller (MVC) architecture and component-based architecture.
As you can see, OpenClassrooms will teach you an impressive portfolio of skills when you follow the OpenClassrooms Salesforce Developer Path.
