What is a platform application developer?

With the continual rise of cloud computing, we see platform as a service (PaaS) companies growing larger and larger in popularity and size. Companies like these often focus on business to business (B2B) strategies and allow companies to reduce its costs on IT infrastructure and development. Though there are many, Salesforce and ServiceNow are some of the big players in this space. Salesforce, a company that offers a wide variety of customer relationship management (CRM) related services, achieved earnings of $7.72 billion in Q2 of 2023. ServiceNow, an IT management platform, reached earnings of $2 billion in Q2 of 2023. It is safe to assume these companies are not going away.

With the expansion of the PaaS space comes a huge number of new career opportunities outside of the traditional software and web application career tracks. Platform application developer is one of these new tracks growing in popularity and demand. Platform application developers specialize in the design, development, and implementation of applications deployed on platforms like Salesforce and ServiceNow.

Though the discipline is similar to traditional software development, there are some important differences. Platform application developers do not have to have the same depth of understand of IT infrastructure. One of the major cost and time benefits of PaaS is that your developers do not have to worry about infrastructure.

Platform application developers have to be experts of their platform. For example, Salesforce developers and administrators have to gain a superior knowledge of the platform, products, and features. That process takes time and effort. Platform application developers also have to be well-versed in UI/UX design as PaaS gives developers more time to work on the front end.

Platform application development is an incredible opportunity. Due to the specialty of the discipline, platform application development can also be extremely lucrative and have higher base salaries than traditional development. For example, according to ZipRecruiter, average salary for Salesforce professional entry level position land around $95k-$100k while the average salaries for software developers is around $79K-$90k. For companies that are heavily invested in Salesforce or ServiceNow, salaries also grow exponentially.

For those interested in platform application development, here are some important items to keep in mind:

1. Know the major platforms

Though it is impossible to know them all, it is important to start to learn and master the major platforms. I have spent a significant amount of time learning Salesforce and ServiceNow since they are some of the biggest and most widely used, however there are many others.

2. Develop project management skills and abilities

Though project management skills are good for any developer, there become especially important as a platform application developer. Since many PaaS platforms are new, stakeholder and users are less familiar with their offerings and features. Platform application developers have to be more involved in the stakeholder management, timeline scheduling, and discovery process.

3. Understand system integration

Most platforms are perfectly designed for integrations. I consider this one of the major advantages. As opposed to traditional applications that require developers to build all the APIs, Salesforce and ServiceNow come with prebuilt APIs and hooks that can be leveraged to connect all your business applications. In the case of Salesforce, Salesforce has an entire universe of applications like Slack and Tableau that all have easy integrations and cross-application features.

4. Master UI/UX Design

Since platform application developers can live on the infrastructure of the platform, more time can be spent on UI/UX design.

5. Find your niche

The more you specialize, the higher salary you can make. As more and more big companies move its business process to Salesforce and ServiceNow, there will be increased demand for platform application developers and system administrators to maintain these enterprise systems.

Platform application development is an exciting career opportunity for traditional developers. Salesforce and ServiceNow are the key platforms to learn about, and developers should always keep up with the latest technologies and innovations in the space.