With Salesforce, companies of all sizes and in every industry can access a range of cloud-based solutions. The Lightning Platform, for example, lets you build custom apps that use Salesforce's power and functionality.
If you are an experienced developer with a good grasp of logic and coding, you must earn the Salesforce Platform Developer II certification. In this article, we will explain what this certification is, what it covers, and how you can earn it.
What is the Salesforce Platform Developer II exam?
The Salesforce Platform Developer II certification exam is intended for IT professionals who want to validate their skills and knowledge of the advanced programmatic capabilities of the Lightning Platform and data modeling to build complex business logic and user interfaces.
In addition, the candidate can design, develop, test, and deploy maintainable, reusable, and object-oriented programming best practices programmatic solutions. You must have the Salesforce Platform Developer I credential for this certification program. The Platform Developer II certification process has two parts: an exam and three super badges: Apex Specialist, Data Integration Specialist, and Advanced Apex Specialist.
You can do them in any order you want. You will automatically get the Salesforce Platform Developer II certification when you finish them all.
About the Salesforce Platform Developer II exam
Here are the Salesforce Platform Developer II certification exam details. Have a quick look:
Exam questions: 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions and up to 5 non-scored questions. Exam duration: 120 minutes Passing score: 70% Exam fee: USD 200
Prerequisites for Salesforce Platform Developer II
Before you can get the Salesforce Platform Developer II certification, you need to meet some prerequisites. First, you need the Salesforce Platform Developer I credential, which shows you have the basic skills and knowledge to develop custom applications on the Lightning Platform.
Second, you need to earn four Trailhead Superbadges that cover advanced topics in Apex programming, data integration, and Aura components. These super badges are Apex Specialist, Data Integration Specialist, Aura Components Specialist, and Advanced Apex Specialist.
Target audience for Salesforce Platform Developer II
The Salesforce Platform Developer II program is designed for someone with practical experience in developing custom applications on the Lightning Platform, using the skills and concepts covered in the exam objectives below.
The Salesforce Platform Developer II typically has two to four years of developer experience, including at least one year of designing, implementing, and deploying solutions on the Lightning Platform. The certified Salesforce Platform Developer II professionals have the experience, skills, and knowledge in the following areas:
- Can apply Salesforce data modeling, user experience design, code development, and testing principles to real-world development environments.
- Knows how to apply declarative and programmatic Lightning Platform features to solve specific business challenges/process requirements.
- Has a strong understanding of platform behavior, limits, and performance considerations when developing Apex code that scales to large data sets.
- Has experience handling larger volumes of data (approximately 300,000 to 480,000 records).
- Develops custom user interfaces using Lightning Web Components, Aura Components, Visualforce, CSS, and JavaScript to display and interact with Salesforce data.
- Ability to tune Visualforce pages and understand the performance implications of controller design.
- Understanding and applying best practices for securing a website and Salesforce specifically.
- Uses declarative and programmatic methods to design and implement complex sharing models.
- Ensures sufficient quality across application components (for example, code coverage, application behavior, scalability, environment independence, and security).
- Has the knowledge to test the Lightning web components using Jest.
- Knows when to use each tool, understands the Salesforce development lifecycle, and can deploy custom applications.
- Knows how to implement SOAP and REST web services in Apex and how to call out from Apex.
- Knows how to do asynchronous programming - queues, batches, schedules, @futures, etc.
- Apply error and exception-handling techniques in various programmatic contexts.
- Develops triggers, design patterns, and other business logic and re-uses it.
- Understands how to surface Lightning Web Components and Aura Components on Lightning pages, Visualforce pages, and Quick Actions.
Exam outline of Salesforce Platform Developer II
The Salesforce Platform Developer II exam tests a candidate’s ability to apply the following objectives. A candidate should have practical experience in developing custom applications on the Lightning Platform and have used each of the features/functions below:
Advanced Developer Fundamentals: 15%
- Demonstrate knowledge of localization and multi-currency features and capabilities and how they affect coding.
- Given a scenario, justify using sharing objects and Apex-managed to share.
- Given a scenario, identify best practices for various types of custom metadata and settings and how to implement required solutions.
Process Automation, Logic, and Integration: 27%
- Given a scenario, identify the considerations of interactions between multiple processes, both declarative and programmatic.
- Given a scenario, propose and justify the optimal programmatic or declarative solution.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the best practices for writing Apex triggers.
- Describe the Apex features available for error handling and maintaining transactional integrity.
- Demonstrate how and where to use advanced keywords in a SOQL query structure.
- Analyze requirements and determine the benefits of using asynchronous Apex coding.
- Given a scenario and requirements, identify the appropriate dynamic Apex feature for the solution.
- Given a scenario, identify the appropriate publish/subscribe logic for platform events.
- Given a scenario, apply programmatic integration techniques and platform features for inbound and outbound communication.
User Interface: 20%
- Given requirements and code snippets for a Lightning Web Component or Aura Component and its Apex controller class, analyze and determine necessary changes to the Apex class.
- Identify the techniques for using Visualforce to perform actions, partial page refreshes, and asynchronous operations.
- Given a scenario, identify best practices for displaying errors in the user interface.
- Given a set of requirements, select the appropriate Lightning Web Component, Aura Component, or Visualforce solution and describe its benefits.
- Given a scenario, describe the aspects of Lightning Web Components or Aura Components that can cause elements in a component's markup to display responsively based on a device's form factor.
- Given a scenario, implement the correct method to communicate events through Lightning Web Components or Aura Components.
- Describe the purpose and benefit of static resources in Visualforce, Lightning Web Components, and Aura Components.
Testing, Debugging, and Deployment: 20%
- Apply advanced techniques and tools for testing Apex classes and triggers, such as mocks and stubs.
- Apply techniques and tools for testing and debugging Lightning Web Components, Aura Components, Visualforce controllers, Visualforce controller extensions, and JavaScript.
- Given a scenario, Apex code, Apex trigger, or Apex test not executing as expected, apply techniques and tools to isolate and identify the root cause.
- Given a scenario, formulate the deployment process, supporting tools, and mechanisms for source-driven development.
Performance: 18%
- Identify the common performance issues for user interfaces and demonstrate knowledge of techniques and tools to mitigate them.
- Given a scenario, choose the appropriate logic and query structure to maximize application performance and handle large data volumes.
- Analyze a given scenario and determine performance improvements that can be achieved with an asynchronous callout.
- Select scenarios where code reuse is applicable and how the reuse should be implemented.
- Given sample code, identify inefficiencies and demonstrate the ability to resolve them.
What are the benefits of earning the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II certification?
Growing opportunities: The Salesforce platform is growing at a fantastic rate of 65% yearly. Many IT companies have adopted Salesforce, meaning more jobs for professionals in this field.
Better salary: Salesforce Platform Developer II certification can boost your income significantly. You will be valued in your field as this certification is difficult. It requires much hard work and skill, and the employers know you are experienced and capable.
Recognition and credibility: The Salesforce Platform Developer II certification is well-recognized and well-respected in the Salesforce community. It shows that you have achieved high expertise and skill in developing custom applications on the Lightning Platform.
Who is a Salesforce Developer?
Salesforce is the leading cloud-based CRM platform. Salesforce is more than just a software program. Besides that, it's a platform that can be customized and extended by professionals who know how to code. The market has a high demand for these professionals called Salesforce developers.
In addition to working for Salesforce partners, Salesforce developers can also work for end clients, businesses that use Salesforce for their own needs. A Salesforce developer, for example, can work for a software company that builds apps for different businesses.
What does a Salesforce developer do?
A Salesforce developer is not just a coder. They are also a problem-solver, a designer, a communicator, and a collaborator. They use their skills and creativity to create and customize applications that help businesses better manage customer relationships.
Here are some of the things that a Salesforce developer does:
- They analyze how businesses work and what they need to succeed
- They create workflows that automate and optimize CRM processes
- They ensure that users have the right access and permissions
- They document their designs and plans in a clear and concise way
- They teach and train other teams on how to use Salesforce
- They work with other engineers and developers to build excellent solutions
Why become a Salesforce Developer?
Do you want to pursue a rewarding and exciting career in the IT field? Obviously, you also want a high salary, just like everyone else. This requires you to take the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II exam.
Salesforce developers build apps using various tools and technologies on the Salesforce platform. With Salesforce, you can use your coding skills and creativity to build and customize applications that solve real-world problems.
According to Indeed, the average salary for a Salesforce developer in the United States is more than $120,000. That’s a lot higher than the average salary for other IT professionals.
And the best part is you can find Salesforce developer jobs anywhere in the world, as Salesforce is used by millions of businesses across industries —small and big enterprises.
