As a software developer, I have always been interested in the point where technology stops being just code and starts solving a business problem.
That is one of the reasons Salesforce interests me now.
Salesforce is not simply a CRM platform. It is an ecosystem where customer data, business processes, automation, applications, analytics and increasingly artificial intelligence can come together.
For someone with a technical background and experience across development, automation, customer interaction, sales and digital processes, that combination is particularly interesting.
Understanding Salesforce as a CRM
At its core, Salesforce helps organizations manage relationships and interactions with their customers.
But the platform becomes much more interesting when we look at how its different building blocks work together.
Some of the fundamental concepts include:
- Accounts
- Contacts
- Leads
- Opportunities
- Cases
These objects represent different parts of a company's relationship with customers and prospects.
For example, a Lead can represent a potential customer.
An Account can represent a company or organization.
A Contact represents a person associated with an account.
An Opportunity represents a potential business opportunity.
And a Case can represent a customer service issue that needs to be managed.
Understanding these relationships is important because CRM is ultimately about understanding the customer journey and the processes surrounding it.
Sales Cloud
Sales Cloud focuses on supporting sales processes.
The concepts of Leads and Opportunities are particularly important here.
A company might start with a potential lead, qualify that lead, and eventually manage a business opportunity through different stages of the sales process.
Technology can then help make this process more organized, measurable and automated.
This connects closely with my own experience.
I have worked with lead generation, digital marketing, WhatsApp communication and the handoff of potential customers to business teams.
That experience made me interested in the technological side of the same process.
Instead of simply generating and forwarding leads, CRM platforms can provide a structured environment for managing the entire relationship.
Service Cloud
Sales is only one part of the customer relationship.
After a customer becomes a customer, support and service become equally important.
This is where Service Cloud becomes relevant.
Cases can be used to organize customer issues, requests and support processes.
My experience at CLYRA included two months working directly with customer support, helping users with questions and problems related to the platform.
That experience gave me a practical understanding of something important in CRM:
Customer experience does not end when the sale happens.
Automation with Salesforce Flows
One of the concepts that I understand just living as a Developer is automation through Salesforce Flow.
A business process often contains repetitive steps.
Instead of requiring a person to manually perform every action (_Imagine running a huge company and having to type in data for millions of people... nowadays, it makes no sense)_, so, a flow can automate parts of the process based on defined conditions and events.
This immediately connects with my previous experience using n8n.
Although the technologies and platforms are different, the underlying idea is familiar:
«Understand the process → identify repetitive actions → define conditions → automate the workflow → validate the result.»
This is one of the reasons I believe my existing automation experience can provide a strong foundation for learning Salesforce.
Configuration vs Development
Another distinction that interests me is the relationship between configuration and development.
A Salesforce solution does not necessarily require custom code for every requirement.
Sometimes the platform's existing capabilities and configuration options are enough.
Other situations may require custom development.
Understanding when to configure and when to develop is therefore not only a technical question.
It is a solution-design question.
The goal should not be to write more code.
The goal should be to build the most appropriate solution for the customer's requirements.
Lightning and the Salesforce Platform
The Salesforce Platform provides an environment for building and extending business applications.
Lightning provides the modern experience through which users interact with Salesforce and its applications.
For someone coming from web development, concepts such as components, interfaces, data, workflows and application logic provide interesting connections with technologies I have already worked with.
My background in JavaScript, React, Node.js, APIs and UI/UX gives me a foundation for understanding these concepts while learning the Salesforce-specific ecosystem.
Apex — Conceptually
Apex is Salesforce's programming language for developing custom logic on the platform.
I am approaching Apex from the perspective of understanding where custom programming fits into the Salesforce ecosystem.
Coming from JavaScript and Node.js, I already have experience with programming logic, APIs, backend development and application architecture.
The syntax and platform-specific concepts are different, but the underlying software engineering principles remain relevant:
- Clear logic
- Maintainability
- Separation of responsibilities
- Error handling
- Testing
- Understanding requirements
The goal is not simply to learn another syntax.
It is to understand how development works within the Salesforce platform.
Dashboards and Business Visibility
Data becomes much more useful when it helps people make decisions.
Salesforce dashboards and reports can transform CRM data into information that business teams can actually use.
For example, an organization might want to understand:
- How many leads are being generated?
- How many opportunities are active?
- Which opportunities are progressing?
- How quickly are customer cases being resolved?
- Where are potential bottlenecks in the sales process?
This is where CRM moves beyond data storage.
It becomes a decision-support system.
Permissions and Trust
A CRM contains sensitive business and customer information.
That makes permissions and access control an important part of Salesforce.
Different users may need different levels of access depending on their responsibilities.
Understanding who can see, modify or manage information is therefore part of designing a responsible business solution.
This is another reminder that enterprise software is not only about functionality.
It is also about governance, security and trust.
Salesforce and Artificial Intelligence
The evolution of Salesforce towards AI is another reason I find the ecosystem good to explore.
AI can potentially help organizations work with their customer data more intelligently, assist users and automate parts of business processes.
But I believe the same principle applies here as in software development:
AI should amplify human judgment, not replace it.
Good AI implementation starts with understanding the business problem.
Without that understanding, adding AI simply because it is available does not necessarily create value.
Why Salesforce?
So, why Salesforce?
Personal goals...
Because it sits exactly at an intersection that interests me:
Technology + Business + Customers + Automation + AI.
My experience is not limited to software development.
I have worked with:
- Web development
- APIs
- Automation
- UI/UX
- Artificial Intelligence tools
- Customer support
- Lead generation
- Digital marketing
- Business processes
Salesforce gives me an opportunity to bring these experiences together while developing deeper expertise in CRM and enterprise technology.
I am particularly interested in learning the platform in a real consulting environment, understanding customer requirements, contributing to implementations and continuously developing my technical and business skills.
I don't see Salesforce as simply another technology to add to my CV.
I see it as an opportunity to become better at something I find increasingly important in technology:
- building solutions that make sense not only technically, but also for the people and businesses using them.
Learning by doing! Dev.to friend's! Even though I'm already familiar with the concepts, I'm taking a 52-hour course to sharpen my skills. I've just hit the 10% mark, and my goal is to finish it in 5 days, posting every new progress right here in the comments! Stay tuned and share with me. 🐞
