Software developers across the entire tech industry have always been expected to prove their skills. Whether they’re applying for new roles, interviewing for promotions, or looking for freelance work, employers want evidence that they can solve real problems. However, proving that ability isn’t always straightforward for those in the Salesforce realm.
Much of Salesforce Developers’ most valuable work lives inside private customer orgs, protected by confidentiality agreements and inaccessible to anyone outside the business. They may have spent years designing integrations or building Lightning Web Components, but unlike developers working on public products or open-source software, they often can’t simply point an interviewer to their best work.
For years, that gap was filled by other signals such as certs, Trailhead, or community involvement, which all painted a picture of a developer’s capabilities. But as AI makes it easier than ever to generate code or build convincing portfolio projects, some hiring managers are beginning to question how much those signals really prove.
This follows on from our recent discussion about how the Salesforce Developer role is evolving. As developers are now expected to think beyond writing code, demonstrating technical ability is becoming less about what you’ve built and more about showing how you think. So if your best work is hidden, how do you prove you’re the right person for the job?
“If You’re Willing to Put in the Effort, There Are Opportunities for You There”
At first glance, Salesforce Developers seem to have a genuinely unfair disadvantage. Unlike developers working on public-facing apps or open-source projects, much of their work is hidden from customers, behind NDAs or internal systems that simply can’t be shared with prospective employers. But while that creates a challenge, the developers I spoke to believe it shouldn’t become an excuse.
“I think that’s the key bit – that they’re willing to put in the effort,” says Ellie Matthewman, Salesforce Multi Cloud Lead Technical Developer at Collinson. “I do understand people need to be careful what they’re talking about from their private orgs, but they can still… I’m a big lover of personal projects.
“If you’re willing to put that effort into translating them into your own personal use cases and projects, that will help you stand out. It shows that you know what you’re doing because you’ve built this thing in your own time. But it also shows you’ve got the willingness to learn. It’s not just a technical thing – it’s also showing that behavioural side around being able to learn. If you’re willing to put in the effort, there are opportunities for you there.”
It’s a bit of a nuanced point, as Ellie isn’t necessarily dismissing the reality that developers can’t showcase confidential customer work, but arguing that the best candidates do find ways to demonstrate their skills elsewhere. This might mean building a personal project inspired by a real-world challenge, utilizing publicly available APIs, or reconstructing the technical decisions behind a real project without sharing any sensitive information.
Salesforce MVP and long-time developer Paul Battisson agrees that private Salesforce orgs make it harder to provide tangible examples. However, when he interviews prospective developers, a portfolio is a bit more of a bonus than a requirement.
“My big area of interest was always really making sure they understood the technology and why,” he explained. “People are going to look things up, that’s normal. What I think is more useful is sitting there and saying, ‘Here’s a scenario. How would you work through it?’ I always think it’s important to understand how somebody thinks through the problem.
“You can be wrong – everyone’s wrong. I’m wrong 20 times a day! But the ability to think through the problem is the important thing because then you can understand why you’re wrong and how to change it.”
These perspectives suggest the challenge might be that most developers assume they have nothing to show. In reality, hiring managers are rarely expecting a production org walkthrough – they’ll understand your limitations. Instead, they’re looking for evidence of technical judgment, curiosity, and the ability to explain why certain decisions are actually made.
“The Social Proof Is Exactly What Gen AI Has Commoditized”
Developers who can’t showcase customer work have always had the option to build a public body of work. This includes GitHub repositories, blog posts, Trailhead badges, certs, and personal projects, which all became ways of signalling technical ability outside the workplace.
They’re not perfect, but together, they help paint a picture of how someone thinks and what they are capable of. According to Saman Attar, Senior Software Engineer at F5 and founder of CampApex, AI has massively changed that equation.
“Before Gen AI, the problem was that most developers’ work was invisible to the public, and the solution was to create visible social proof like blog posts, open source projects on GitHub, and answers in public forums. But that social proof is exactly what Gen AI has commoditized,” Saman explained.
“Anyone can now generate an open source project on GitHub or an article without understanding a single line of it. Building something used to require understanding it – that’s what made the artifact trustworthy. Now the two have come apart, so the artifact proves nothing.”
Essentially, this could mean that public portfolios simply might not carry the same weight they once did. That doesn’t automatically mean that the examples we used (GitHub repositories, certs) have become worthless, but they may be conversation starters more than they are proof in themselves.
Ellie takes a similar approach to interviewing candidates, telling SF Ben: “I wouldn’t even necessarily look at their actual personal projects. It’s just the fact that they’ve even done them, and I would ask them to talk about it.
“Understanding how much of it they actually understand – and how much potentially was written by AI – is kind of the key part. When I’m hiring, it would be the technical discussions around it that help me know if I believe they can do it or not.”
Paul also told SF Ben that while a portfolio or GitHub profile can provide useful context, interviews should focus less on whether someone can recall syntax and more on how they reason through unfamiliar problems.
As tools like vibe coding become more powerful and influential to a developer’s role, the role may be judged more on whether they can produce an answer quickly and more on whether they can assess whether that answer is actually correct. Saman said that’s always been the real skill.
He said: “It’s never been easier to build the wrong software. The real challenge has always been building the right software by solving the right problem. So when I’m assessing the quality of a developer, that’s what I lean on these days. Asking them what other ways they considered solving this, the trade-offs they considered, the constraints, and more.”
Ironically, a way of thinking about it is that AI may be making interviews more human rather than less, as prospects are expected to explain their thinking and defend their decisions, demonstrating genuine understanding when challenged.
So How Can A Developer Truly Stand Out?
There may not be one straight answer to how a developer can stand out. Personal projects, certs, and community involvements still play their part, but a lot points to being able to show their thinking in more conversational and creative ways.
For Ellie, one of the best ways to bridge the gap between confidential customer work and public evidence is to focus on the skills and decisions behind a project.
“You can talk about your best work without getting into the details. You don’t have to say, ‘I integrated Salesforce with Workday.’ You can say, ‘I integrated Salesforce with an HR platform.’ You can explain how you did it and the things you learned,” Ellie detailed.
“If you can’t talk about that, what did you learn from it? What could you create as your own personal project to demonstrate those skills? Show that you can replicate it and that it wasn’t just following orders. I think it’s about thinking more about what they can talk about rather than seeing the brick wall and saying, ‘I can’t talk about it because it’s behind closed doors.'”
Personal projects still hold value, and actually, the ones that reflect genuine personal interests may be very helpful. Ellie pointed to her own NFL fantasy draft application that she built during COVID, built on Salesforce and integrated with an external website. It was a project that allowed her to demonstrate her technical skills while giving interviewers something memorable to discuss, tacitly building rapport.
Community involvement is also still quite important. Paul believed that speaking at user groups, contributing to open-source projects, or writing blogs all help developers demonstrate their understanding because they force them to communicate technical ideas clearly.
Saman took this ideology a step further: “What’s left is the oldest and least scalable thing: real people who’ll vouch for you with their own reputation on the line and your ability to demonstrate understanding in front of someone face-to-face.
“If anything, the Salesforce ecosystem is one of the best places to build that reputation. Community events and local user groups are still a fantastic way to meet professionals, present live, and field hard questions in real time.”
Final Thoughts
Salesforce Developers undoubtedly face a unique challenge when it comes to showing their skill set. When your best work sits behind private customer orgs, standing out isn’t always straightforward. But it’s equally clear that there are plenty of ways to navigate that challenge.
In a competitive job market, the developers who stand out are likely to be those who put in the extra effort – whether that’s building meaningful personal projects, improving their communication skills, getting involved in the community, or simply finding better ways to explain the problems they’ve solved. Technical ability still matters, but so does the ability to demonstrate it.
