Salesforce Developer: Understanding the Role and Responsibilities (2024)

Hiring the right Salesforce Developer can be challenging. Developers are key to any Salesforce instance that has been extended beyond declarative (point-and-click) configuration. A developer in the Salesforce world is typically expected to take on a broader range of responsibilities than developers in other industries. The range of responsibilities of a Salesforce developer go from the typical code-based tasks (using Apex and Javascript), to work that requires a level of business acumen.

Developers are also often expected to perform tasks normally associated with administrators, such as managing users, constructing data models, and automating processes using declarative tools. The range of responsibilities tends to broaden with seniority (however, this is not universally true). When hiring a Salesforce Developer, technical complexity (ie. how much code you have in your org), integrated systems, team size, and budget can be factors in deciding whether to hire a junior or senior Salesforce Developer.

To help your search for the perfect candidate, we put together a sample job description for junior and senior Salesforce Developers, including an overview of the responsibilities, required qualifications, and desirable abilities. It also includes a list of common job benefits Salesforce candidates seek and salary expectations.

Feel free to take this template and make it your own!

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JUNIOR
SENIOR

Junior Salesforce Developer Template Job Description

Who are Junior Developers?

For the purposes of this template job description, a junior Salesforce Developer is someone with less than 5 years of Salesforce development experience (although they may have several years of experience on other platforms).

Thanks for your interest in [your company name], we are pleased to share that we have the following role available.

RoleJunior Salesforce Developer
BasisFull Time
TypePermanent
Salary$90k - $120k / £35K - £55K, depending on experience

A note about Salesforce salaries:

A note about Salesforce salaries: the average salary for a junior developer is $109,20 in the US and £52,500 in the UK. One single figure without context can be misleading – there will be a significant difference in the salaries based on certain factors. Our salary guides aim to explain the influencing factors behind the numbers, such as experience, location, certifications, and others.

About us:

What to insert:

Insert a paragraph about your organization – just like you would write on the ‘what we do’ section of your website. You should also include who your customers are, and a small pitch on your vision.

About the role:

As a junior Salesforce Developer, you’ll play a vital role at [your company name]. We are looking for an individual that can help us continually improve and enhance our Salesforce platform, guided by experienced Salesforce Developers in our IT team. Our Salesforce instance is of great importance to us, therefore you should keep the wider organization’s best interests in mind when composing and deploying any code.

We are looking for someone who is a self-starter and open to learning best practice development from the team. This role comes with the opportunity to absorb knowledge and grow as a developer.

[Enter any information about team structure or the reporting hierarchy. For example: “The Junior Salesforce Developer will be working within the IT team and will report directly to the Head of IT.”]

Don’t forget:

Don’t forget to include which benefits you can offer prospective employees. Of course, this will be different from one organization to the next, even by role. Which benefits are Salesforce professionals attracted to? One global survey of Salesforce professionals found that the most sought after benefits were 13th-month pay/year-end bonus (29%), free internet 26%, gym membership/fitness expense allowance (21%), 4 weeks or more paid time off (20%).

These ‘perks’ are, of course, outside of the most common benefits that come with Salesforce roles (in order of prevalence):

Responsibilities

  • Develop Apex (classes and triggers), Lightning Components, and Visualforce to extend Salesforce in order to support business requirements,
  • Application development, including basic Visualforce pages/Lightning pages, Lightning Web Components,
    Assist with each release cycle to implement and deploy new/updates to existing applications and code,
  • Working with integrated applications such as [enter your additional applications e.g. DocuSign, Conga, Survey Gizmo, Mailchimp etc]*,
  • Testing** (unit and systems), and debugging,
  • Striving towards coding best practices and data quality,
  • Contributing to technical documentation,
  • Supporting the Salesforce Administrator*** on occasion.

*note: a junior developer is not expected to be proficient with integrations. Building and managing integrations is a capability expected of mid-level developers, with over 2 years experience. Junior developers should still be interacting with an organization’s integrated applications but not expected to build new integrations or adapt existing ones.

**note: larger organisations may have a QA department to do testing. In general, unless you have no other option, letting developers test is a bad idea.

***note: there can be some overlap where developers assist with some admin tasks (declarative configuration), especially if you work in: a small organization, or an organization where the admin/s are stretched or are a solo developer.

Qualifications and Background

Required:

  • Salesforce product knowledge and at least 6 months of Salesforce development experience

Desirable:

  • Certified Salesforce Platform Developer I,
  • Additional Salesforce certifications e.g. Certified Salesforce Administrator, Certified Javascript Developer
  • Bachelor’s/Postgraduate degree, a professional qualification, or equivalent experience*

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Required:

  • Experience implementing and developing in Apex, Visualforce, and Javascript,
  • A proactive attitude to Salesforce enhancements,
  • A good work ethic, ready to absorb best practice from the team,
  • Developing solutions with best practice front of mind,
  • Ability to interpret technical specifications,
  • Create technical documentation,

Available and responsive to questions.

Desirable:

  • Competency in HTML, XML, Flex, ASP, SQL, Java or C++, REST and SOAP-based web services,
  • Familiarity with developing on other cloud platforms, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services,
  • Contribution to open-source projects, or personal projects in a good state of development,
  • Demonstrates continued personal/professional development,
  • Active in the Salesforce community.

*note: developers often join the Salesforce ecosystem after having gained experience on other platforms. While many of the skills are transferable and beneficial, certain paradigms that a developer may have learned previously could actually be detrimental to their work. When encountering a developer with a background outside of cloud platforms, allow for some re-training time with more experienced developers.

What You’ll Get

What to include:

Don’t forget to include which benefits you can offer prospective employees. Of course, this will be different from one organization to the next, even by role.

Have a good think about what you have to offer and what benefits potential applicants will be interested in. The role of Salesforce Developer may not seem a diverse one on paper, but you will be surprised! The top organizations seek a developer with a mix of technical and soft skills. Applicants for this role may be quite different to your sales team, or even your traditional IT team.

Software development is a creative process, and as such, developers often seek out working spaces with certain elements to appeal to their individual nature. They may be enticed by the availability of food and drink in the office, a particularly tidy or artistic workspace, a games and/or rest area, and the availability of high-quality equipment, such as higher-end computers.

A company that can demonstrate how they are improving diversity or employee wellbeing with benefits such as working from home and flexible working will be very appealing. There is also a strong desire to do good and give back within the Salesforce community and so charity or volunteering days will be appreciated.

The Salesforce platform is constantly evolving and therefore the role of a Salesforce Developer can be a significantly challenging one. A compelling perk to a Salesforce Developer is the opportunity for continued personal and professional development. If you are able to offer training specific to the role, such as paying for Salesforce certifications, then make this really clear!

Part of the charm of this ecosystem is its tight-knit community, which often include in-person or otherwise all-day events. Salesforce even holds an annual event for professionals from around the world lasting an entire week. Enabling a developer to participate in these events, such as reserving a set number of days off to attend these events, will help them improve their proficiency on the platform as well as their soft skills.

Examples of benefits include:

  • Competitive salary – reviewed annually
  • Bonus
  • Company laptop
  • Health and medical insurance
  • Homeworking
  • Retirement savings plan/401(k)
  • Match/pension contributions
  • Dental plan
  • Casual dress policy
  • Life insurance
  • Training and development opportunities
  • Flexible working hours
  • Certification exam vouchers
  • Charity/volunteer days
  • Annual attendance to Dreamforce and/or TrailheaDX

Final tip – don’t try and sell statutory employee benefits as perks!

Here’s an example of what you could write:

At [your company name] you can expect to join a warm and welcoming team in a business that wants you to succeed. Employee satisfaction is of paramount importance to us and we show this through a wide range of benefits including working from home, flexible working hours, [X] days holiday per annum, [enter other key benefits]. We know how important the role of junior Salesforce Developer is to our business and are committed to supporting your personal and professional development. We’ll do this by paying for [X] Salesforce certifications per year and reimbursing study costs up to [X]. In addition, we are supportive of you attending both Salesforce and Salesforce Community events, meaning you can attend during working hours and can be reimbursed up to [X] for costs associated with attending i.e. ticket cost.

Summary

Include a summary of your organization to wrap up the job description. Here you should also mention the ‘softer’ benefits of working for your organization that appeal to a candidate’s aspirations, such as growth potential, colleagues, company culture, and more. Your aim is to ‘re-sell’ the role after going through all the bullet-pointed roles and responsibilities – here is your chance to add a touch of color!

Senior Salesforce Developer Template Job Description

Who are Senior Developers?

For the purposes of this template job description, a junior Salesforce Developer is someone with 5 or more years of Salesforce development experience.

Senior Salesforce Developers will have additional years of technical experience, and a strategic view when it comes to deciding how code should be written in order to serve the business in the long term.

Thanks for your interest in [your company name], we are pleased to share that we have the following role available.

Role
Senior Salesforce Developer
BasisFull Time
TypePermanent
Salary$90k - $150k/ £70K - £120K, depending on experience

A note about Salesforce salaries:

A note about Salesforce salaries: the average salary for a senior Salesforce Developer is $144,000 in the US and £77,000 in the UK. One single figure without context can be misleading – there will be a significant difference in the salaries based on certain factors. Our salary guides aim to explain the influencing factors behind the numbers, such as experience, location, certifications, and others.

About us:

What to insert:

Insert a paragraph about your organization – just like you would write on the ‘what we do’ section of your website. You should also include who your customers are, and a small pitch on your vision.

About the role:

As our Senior Salesforce Developer, you’ll play a vital role at [your company name]. We are looking for an individual that will be central to continually improving and enhancing the Salesforce platform for our organization. Our Salesforce instance is of great importance to us, therefore you should keep the wider organization’s best interests in mind composing and deploying any code.

We are looking for someone who can take ownership of all programmatic requests. You will work alongside our Salesforce Administrator to collaborate on specifications based on stakeholder requirements, validate the proposals, and deliver the solutions.

This role comes with the potential to grow and manage your own team of developers over time.

[Enter any information about team structure or the reporting hierarchy. For example: “The Senior Salesforce Developer will be working within the IT team and will report directly to the Head of IT.”]

Don’t forget:

Don’t forget to include which benefits you can offer prospective employees. Of course, this will be different from one organization to the next, even by role. Which benefits are Salesforce professionals attracted to? One global survey of Salesforce professionals found that the most sought after benefits were 13th-month pay/year-end bonus (29%), free internet 26%, gym membership/fitness expense allowance (21%), 4 weeks or more paid time off (20%).

These ‘perks’ are, of course, outside of the most common benefits that come with Salesforce roles (in order of prevalence):

Responsibilities

  • Collaborating with the Salesforce Administrator to validate business requirements and any considerations (security, scalability, limits),
  • Develop Apex (classes and triggers), Visualforce*, (based on specific requirements) to extend Salesforce in order to support business requirements,
  • Custom User Interface development, including Visualforce* pages/Lightning pages, Aura Components** and Lightning Web Components,
  • Integrations: Use Salesforce APIs to integrate with other systems used in the organization,
  • Best Practices: Adhere to Salesforce best practices, maintain code documentation, and write / maintain test classes for all custom development,
  • Take ownership of release cycles to implement and deploy new/updates to existing applications and code,
  • Integrating and maintaining business applications to Salesforce, such as [enter your additional applications e.g. DocuSign, Conga, Survey Gizmo, Mailchimp etc],
  • Collaborating with IT / Developers for other systems in order to integrate across the business,
  • Supporting the Salesforce Administrator**.

*note: this should only be included if there is a definite need for Visuelforce e.g. maintaining existing Visualforce. LWC is the new standard and should be used going forward.

**note: this should only be included if there is a definite need e.g. maintaining existing Aura Components. LWC is the new standard and should be used going forward.

***note: there can be some overlap where developers assist with some admin tasks (declarative configuration), especially if you work in: a small organization, or an organization where the admin/s are stretched or are a solo developer.

Qualifications and Background

Required:

  • Salesforce [enter your Salesforce products e.g. Sales Cloud] product knowledge and at least 5 years of Salesforce development experience,
  • Able to work independently,
  • Able to collaborate and communicate effectively with business stakeholders / other Salesforce team members,
  • Certified Salesforce Platform Developer I,
  • Proficient with Microsoft Visual Studio, Salesforce Lightning Design System and the Salesforce development lifecycle.

Desirable:

  • Additional Salesforce certifications e.g. Certified Salesforce Administrator, Certified Salesforce Platform App Builder, Platform Developer II, JavaScript Developer I,
  • Bachelor’s/Postgraduate degree, professional qualification, or relevant experience.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Required:

  • Experience implementing and developing in Apex, LWC, Visualforce, and Java,
  • General web development experience with HTML, CSS, Javascript,
  • A proactive attitude to Salesforce enhancements and bringing existing code into best practices,
  • Ability to write, interpret, and critique technical specifications,
  • Experience working with large data sets and bulkification,
  • Soft skills: the ability to gather requirements and present solutions to stakeholders.

Desirable:

  • Competency in other languages / development (XML, Flex, JavaScript, .NET, SQL, C++, SOAP-based web services,
  • Comfortable managing a team,
  • Demonstrates continued personal/professional development,
  • Active in the Salesforce community.

What You’ll Get

What to include:

Don’t forget to include which benefits you can offer prospective employees. Of course, this will be different from one organization to the next, even by role.

Have a good think about what you have to offer and what benefits potential applicants will be interested in. The role of Salesforce Developer may not seem a diverse one on paper, but you will be surprised! The top organizations seek a developer with a mix of technical and soft skills. Applicants for this role may be quite different to your sales team, or even your traditional IT team.

Software development is a creative process, and as such, developers often seek out working spaces with certain elements to appeal to their individual nature. They may be enticed by the availability of food and drink in the office, a particularly tidy or artistic workspace, a games and/or rest area, and the availability of high-quality equipment, such as higher-end computers.

A company that can demonstrate how they are improving diversity or employee wellbeing with benefits such as working from home and flexible working will be very appealing. There is also a strong desire to do good and give back within the Salesforce community and so charity or volunteering days will be appreciated.

The Salesforce platform is constantly evolving and therefore the role of a Salesforce Developer can be a significantly challenging one. A compelling perk to a Salesforce Developer is the opportunity for continued personal and professional development. If you are able to offer training specific to the role, such as paying for Salesforce certifications, then make this really clear!

Part of the charm of this ecosystem is its tight-knit community, which often include in-person or otherwise all-day events. Salesforce even holds an annual event for professionals from around the world lasting an entire week. Enabling a developer to participate in these events, such as reserving a set number of days off to attend these events, will help them improve their proficiency on the platform as well as their soft skills.

Examples of benefits include:

  • Competitive salary – reviewed annually
  • Bonus
  • Company laptop
  • Health and medical insurance
  • Homeworking
  • Retirement savings plan/401(k)
  • Match/pension contributions
  • Dental plan
  • Casual dress policy
  • Life insurance
  • Training and development opportunities
  • Flexible working hours
  • Certification exam vouchers
  • Charity/volunteer days
  • Annual attendance to Dreamforce and/or TrailheaDX

Final tip – don’t try and sell statutory employee benefits as perks!

Here’s an example of what you could write:

At [your company name] you can expect to join a warm and welcoming team in a business that wants you to succeed. Employee satisfaction is of paramount importance to us and we show this through a wide range of benefits including working from home, flexible working hours, [X] days holiday per annum, [enter other key benefits]. We know how important the role of junior Salesforce Developer is to our business and are committed to supporting your personal and professional development. We’ll do this by paying for [X] Salesforce certifications per year and reimbursing study costs up to [X]. In addition, we are supportive of you attending both Salesforce and Salesforce Community events, meaning you can attend during working hours and can be reimbursed up to [X] for costs associated with attending i.e. ticket cost.

Summary

Include a summary of your organization to wrap up the job description. Here you should also mention the ‘softer’ benefits of working for your organization that appeal to a candidate’s aspirations, such as growth potential, colleagues, company culture, and more. Your aim is to ‘re-sell’ the role after going through all the bullet-pointed roles and responsibilities – here is your chance to add a touch of color!

Example Interview Process

  1. CV submission and review.
  2. Initial interview: with up to 2 people. Sharing more about what we do, and getting to know you – your motivations, personality and background.
  3. Second stage interview: solve and present back the solution to a business scenario provided.
  4. Decision.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully this in-depth description will help you find the prime Salesforce Developer candidate!

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Salesforce Developer: Understanding the Role and Responsibilities (2024)

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