A guide to hiring an Apex developer
Apex is the programming language that runs inside Salesforce. It is used for custom logic that settings and Flow cannot handle well, such as complex rules, heavy data work and connections to other systems. People rarely hire for Apex alone. They hire a developer who writes clean Apex and also understands queries, screens and the way changes reach a live org. Below you will find the typical tasks, ways to size up a candidate and a simple plan for week one.
What Apex does
Salesforce stores your customers, deals and cases as records. Apex lets a developer run code when something happens to those records, or on a schedule, or when another system asks for data. Because many companies share the same Salesforce servers, the platform limits how many queries and updates one run may use. Good Apex is written with those limits in mind from the first line.
Where the work usually comes from
One common case is custom logic. A company wants a rule that Flow cannot express, such as rolling up values across many records or checking a deal against several conditions before it is saved. Another is data and background work. Large imports, nightly clean ups and long calculations run best as batch jobs. A third is integration. Billing, marketing and support systems need to send and receive records, and an Apex developer builds those calls and handles the errors.
How an Apex developer differs from other roles
A Salesforce developer is the wider role, and covers admin changes, Flow, screens and the health of the whole org. An Apex developer is the person you bring in when the hard part is the code itself. A CRM developer may work across several tools, while an Apex developer goes deep on one platform. An API developer builds services outside Salesforce, and often works with an Apex developer on the other end of a connection.
When an Apex developer makes sense
- A Flow has grown so large that it is slow or hard to change.
- Users see limit errors when they load or update many records.
- You need a nightly job that cleans or moves a lot of data.
- Another system must read from or write to Salesforce in a way settings cannot do.
- Old code in your org has no tests, and nobody dares to touch it.
If a setting or a Flow solves the problem, use that first. It is easier for an admin to keep, and an honest answer like that is a good sign.
Protect your data first
An Apex developer can see customer records, so decide the access before the work starts. Use a sandbox for building and testing, and give the person only the permissions they need. Close the access once the work is done. If your records include sensitive personal data, check your own legal and company rules before anyone gets access.
Reading an Apex developer’s background
Ask to hear about a time when code kept working as data grew. Good answers explain what the developer did to avoid limit errors and how they tested the change. Treat a background made only of certificates or courses with care. Writing a short class is easy, while building something that lasts needs judgement about data volume, timing and error cases.
Interview questions to try
- How do you write a trigger that is safe when a whole list of records is saved at once?
- When would you choose a batch job over a queueable job?
- How do you make sure a test checks behavior and not just coverage?
- A user sees a limit error after a data load. How do you find the cause?
- How would you move a change from a sandbox to production?
Good answers are clear and come with real examples. Be wary of anyone who talks only about tools and never about limits or tests.
Run a short paid trial task
Give each finalist one small piece of your real work. Ideas include rewriting one slow trigger, writing a test class for an untested class, or building a small scheduled job on sample data in a sandbox. Pay them for it. Notice how readable the code is, how they deal with edge cases and how clearly they explain each decision.
Agree how the code is kept alive
Code needs care over time, because Salesforce changes its platform in regular releases and your own business rules change too. Agree who reviews code, how changes are named and how fast a fix is expected. Keep the code in version control that your company owns, and request a brief comment next to each class that says what it does.
Working with your team
Help your developer see how sales, support and operations use the org each day. Share a list of known problems in order of pain. One brief call each week and a common task list keep an Apex developer and your admin working from the same plan.
Mistakes to avoid
- Writing code for a job that a Flow or a setting would handle.
- Putting queries or updates inside loops.
- Skipping a sandbox and changing the live org directly.
- Leaving the only knowledge of how the code works in one person’s head.
Looking for a broader hire? Take a look at our Salesforce developers for the whole org, or our CRM developers for work across several tools.