Salesforce Certified Platform Developer Exam Prep

About the Salesforce Platform Developer Exam

The Salesforce Platform Developer exam targets candidates who build custom apps on the Lightning Platform. It covers the core programmatic tools used to extend Salesforce—Apex, Visualforce, and Lightning components—to create custom business logic and interfaces. Passing this exam earns the Platform Developer credential and also qualifies you to sit for the Platform Developer II multiple-choice exam.

Who This Exam Is For

This exam suits developers who have implemented and deployed basic business logic and user interfaces on the Lightning Platform and practiced the skills listed in the exam objectives.

Typical background:

• About 1–2 years of general development experience and ~6 months working on the Lightning Platform.

• Time spent studying the resources referenced in the official exam guide.

Expected Skills and Knowledge

Candidates typically:

• Work with data-driven apps and relational databases.

• Use object-oriented languages (e.g., Apex, JavaScript, Java, C#, Ruby).

• Understand governor limits and how they affect solution design.

• Know MVC and component-based architectures.

• Understand core Salesforce schema objects and their capabilities.

• Recognize use cases for formula fields and roll-up summary fields.

• Choose appropriately between declarative and programmatic solutions and apply relevant declarative features when suitable.

• Write Apex following best practices to customize Salesforce.

• Extend the platform with Apex, Lightning components (basic), and Visualforce.

• Build custom interfaces and business logic using Lightning Platform programmatic features.

• Test, debug, and deploy code and understand available environments.

Out of scope for this exam: administering standard Salesforce apps, building mobile apps, publishing managed packages on AppExchange, performance tuning, or designing integrations such as callouts, APIs, and email services.

Purpose of This Guide

This guide helps you assess readiness for the Salesforce Platform Developer exam. It outlines the target audience, points to recommended training and documentation, and lists the exam objectives. Combining on-the-job experience, courses, and self-study is strongly recommended.

Exam Details (At a Glance)

• Format: 60 multiple-choice/multiple-select questions, plus up to 5 unscored items

• Time: 105 minutes

• Passing score: 68%

• Release alignment: Winter ’25

• Registration fee: US$200 (plus applicable taxes)

• Retake fee: US$100 (plus applicable taxes)

• Delivery: Proctored at a test center or online proctored (see Salesforce for scheduling information)

• References: No hard-copy or online materials allowed during the exam

• Prerequisite: None (course attendance recommended)

Exam Outline

The Salesforce Platform Developer Exam measures a candidate’s knowledge and skills related to the following objectives. A candidate should have hands-on experience developing custom applications on the Lightning Platform and be able to demonstrate the application of each of the topics and objectives below.

Developer Fundamentals: 23%

• Understand multi-tenant concepts and design frameworks, such as MVC architecture and Lightning Component Framework.

• Given a scenario, identify common use cases and best practices for declarative versus programmatic customizations, including governor limits, formula fields, and roll-up summaries.

• Given a scenario, determine, create, and access the appropriate data model including objects, fields, relationships, and external IDs.

• Given a scenario, identify the options and considerations when importing and exporting data into development environments.

Process Automation and Logic: 30%

• Identify the capabilities of the declarative process automation features.

• Declare variables, constants, methods, and use modifiers and Apex interfaces.

• Given a scenario, use and apply Apex control flow statements.

• Given a scenario, write SOSL, SOQL, and DML statements in Apex.

• Given a scenario, follow best practices to write Apex classes and triggers.

• Given a scenario, identify the implications of governor limits on Apex transactions.

• Describe the relationship between Apex transactions, the save order of execution, and the potential for recursion and/or cascading.

• Implement exception handling in Apex, including custom exceptions as needed.

• Given a scenario, use declarative functionality and Apex together to automate business logic.

User Interface: 25%

• Given a scenario, display content or modify Salesforce data using a Visualforce page and the appropriate controllers or extensions as needed.

• Describe the Lightning Component Framework, its benefits, and the types of content that can be contained in a Lightning web component.

• Given a scenario, prevent user interface and data access security vulnerabilities.

• Given a scenario, display and use a custom user interface components, including Lightning components, Flow, and Visualforce.

• Describe the use cases and best practices for Lightning Web Component events.

• Given a scenario, implement Apex to work with various types of page components, including Lightning components, Flow, Next Best Actions, etc.

Testing, Debugging, and Deployment: 22%

• Write and execute tests for triggers, controllers, classes, flows, and processes using various sources of test data.

• Given a scenario, know how and when to use the Salesforce Developer tools such as Salesforce DX, Salesforce CLI, and Developer Console.

• Describe how to approach debugging system issues and monitoring flows, processes, and asynchronous and batch jobs, etc.

• Describe the environments, requirements, and process for deploying code and associated configurations.