Developers

5 Concepts For Every New Salesforce Developer To Learn

By Saifullah Saifi

There is huge demand for Salesforce Developers all over the world and it’s no surprise considering the Salesforce economy is growing at such a crazy rate! Salesforce Developers are hot property with in-demand skills and can expect to enjoy higher salaries than equivalent developer roles in other industries.

In this post we will explore the 5 key concepts every new Salesforce Developer must learn in order to be successful and stand out from the crowd.

1. Understand the Basic and Advanced Concepts of Apex

Apex is one of the oldest and single most powerful backend languages for the Salesforce platform. If you want to be a good Developer you must learn the basics of Apex, data types, and collection, especially Map.

An Apex trigger is one of the most used and complex automative tools that a Salesforce Developer can write. It is important you understand trigger framework, code optimization, plus an understanding of Dynamic Apex and Asynchronous Apex will give you the skills needed in Database Transaction and Backend Development.

2. Learn and Master Lightning Web Components

Lightning Web Components (LWC) is the first open-source Javascript framework from Salesforce with great features and built on open web standards.

According to Trailhead:

Source: Discover Lightning Web Components

Due to its open web standard quality, it is now very similar to any other front-end JS framework, such as angular JS or react JS. This means that if you are an Aura component developer, you can learn to use LWC easily. LWC and Aura can coexist, however, LWC is faster and more lightweight. Aura and LWC both can send and receive data through Lightning Data Service (LDS) and the User Interface API.

Salesforce has also included LWC features for Mobile SDK. We have VScode, and CLI to code in local machines and in the org.

3. Learn Salesforce declarative features to achieve optimized results

The best Developers are able to utilize Salesforce’s powerful declarative features before resorting to code. Due to Salesforce’s impressive standard features and automation tools such as Flow, many requests and problems can be solved easily without disrupting the Governor limits of Salesforce. For example, there is a relatively new feature known as Salesforce Dynamic Forms that will help Developers avoid redundant coding. Even a Developer must learn to be an Admin; only once you are sure it cannot be done declaratively or it isn’t best practice to use “clicks”, should you turn to code.

Source: Break Up Your Record Details with Dynamic Forms

4. Learn to work with Large Data Sets

You may be a good Developer with strong logical skills, but in Salesforce governor limits suppress everything. Sometimes your queries will stop working because of the large data size. Your trigger or scheduler will give you a nightmare, even though it may have worked fine in a sandbox, once there were volumes of records it failed.

For that purpose you need to learn the following from Trailhead:

  • How you can use indexing for SOQL optimization
  • Why you should use queueable or batch
  • Development in Large Data set
  • How and when to use Big Objects
  • Choosing the best integration technique

5. Learn the basic concept of Security and Sharing of Salesforce

Salesforce has a complex and powerful security model, however, due to its customization ability using code in Apex or LWC, a minor mistake can accidentally display sensitive data to the wrong user – that’s a BIG issue. A Salesforce Developer must always consider the org’s record access design.

You should learn about the following in detail:

  1. Record level access
  2. Apex based sharing

Summary

A good Salesforce Developer must learn about these key concepts; in doing so, you ensure a successful, fulfilling career in one of the most exciting technical ecosystems in the world!

The Author

Saifullah Saifi

Sr Salesforce Developer, Author of "Cloud Computing using Salesforce"

Comments:

    stella george
    February 24, 2021 1:47 pm
    Great Post on Concepts For Every New Salesforce Developer To Learn! Thanks for Sharing!
    raashiMetaoups
    February 26, 2021 10:24 am
    Great information on 5 concepts for every new salesforce developer to learn. Very Insightful. You can also read to know more about Medforce

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