Industry-monitoring website cio.com writes:
“If you do one thing in pursuit of that goal this year, you should add Salesforce skills to your resume. It’s one of the fastest-growing, most in-demand skills out there. And it’s ubiquitous. From software developers, solutions architects and designers to project managers and marketing and sales professionals, it’s a skill that almost every professional can benefit from.”
Do you know what Salesforce is, or—more importantly—if it’s a good career choice?
A Background on Salesforce
First, let’s clear up what people mean when they say Salesforce. Broadly, Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. All companies need to keep records of their customers. They also need to sell more goods and services to customers. Salesforce specializes in streamlining this sales process.
But Salesforce is also much more. It was created to be highly extensible. Salesforce is built on underlying technology called the Salesforce Platform, or sometimes Force.com.
Businesses use the Salesforce Platform for a wide range of needs beyond sales, such as Human Resources, Finance, IT Operations, and Supply Chain Any time data is collected and business processes need to run, there’s a good chance that Salesforce is the right solution.
While many of these areas have nothing to do with sales, most people still refer to the platform as simply Salesforce. The name may give the wrong impression, so think of it as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), where the underlying infrastructure is taken care of for you.
This is where it gets interesting for developers. As a Salesforce developer, you’re mainly involved in the applications and the data. You don’t need to worry about the underlying servers (e.g. performance, networking, updates, etc.). You only need to think about what you do best: code.
Salesforce follows the Model-View-Controller paradigm, so developers have a robust and sophisticated environment to develop in. Here are a few of the main technologies that Salesforce developers use:
- An Object-Oriented language called Apex, much like Java or C#
- A database with querying capabilities, similar to SQL
- A Web page markup language called Visualforce, similar to HTML
Any developer who has experience coding in a high-level language and is familiar with database concepts and web page technologies will experience a smooth transition to the Salesforce development platform.
Why Consider a Career as a Salesforce Developer
According to a Burning Glass report:
“Setting aside the near-universal Microsoft Office suite, Salesforce is now the 7th most in-demand software skill, up from number 18 just four years ago. That puts demand for Salesforce [skills] ahead of IT stalwarts such as Python, .Net, and C++.”
Most Salesforce developers are hired either directly by companies that use Salesforce, or with partner companies that deliver Salesforce solutions on a contract basis.
If you’d like to explore more about Salesforce development, join us on campus in May 6 - 20 for our nights and weekends course on Salesforce!
Can’t do the course in May? Fill out our survey to get updates on the next Salesforce course.