Salesforce Developers Podcast

In this episode, we have a conversation with the lead software engineer here at Salesforce, Jonathan Gillespie. Jonathan develops in Apex and Liightning Components and works in the internal org, Gus. He has been on the podcast before, but he’s back to discuss the follow-up to his Nebula Logger project – the Nebula Cache Manager. We talk about how Platform Cache works, how it works with Apex, and how it can make your life as a developer better. Jonathan also shares the three specific limits that led him to start thinking about better cache strategies. Listen in to learn how the new Nebula Cache Manager can be a benefit to you. Show Highlights: What Nebula Logger is. What happens when we have a static variable in Apex. The difference between organizational and session platform caches. The expiration of an organization. How Jonathan handles an org with no Platform Cache. The things Jonathan wanted to give back to a developer from a utility point of view. Links: LinkedIn Account GitHub Account Nebula Cache Manager A Flexible Cache Manager, Joys Of Apex  

James Simone is a lead software engineer here at Salesforce. James works under the helm of the agile organization, where his team helps build tools for all of the engineering teams to measure their productivity and happiness. James’ team is making it possible to move fast without breaking anything at Salesforce. In this episode, we talk about many philosophical concepts of software engineering. This includes agile and pure programming, mob programming, recursion and refactoring, and more. We also go into creating a future-proofed framework and even bring in the movie Midnight in Paris. Listen in to learn how to move fast without breaking things in software engineering. Show Highlights: The tools involved in tracking agile What James finds interesting about the Ruby ecosystem Timing and efficiency versus safety Where YAGNI comes into play What makes for a good unit test Links: Linkedin Account GitHub Account Joys Of Apex Changelog Episode 521 Combined Apex Async Framework Blog Post  

Jason Atwood is the co-founder and CEO of the business consulting company Arkus Incorporated. In this episode, we talk about how he progressed from running a carpet company in Africa to becoming a Python developer to getting involved with Salesforce. We also discuss how he formed Arkus. However, our primary focus for this episode has less to do with computer coding and more to do with helping people reach their goals. Our focal point for this episode is on how to get things done and what that means for developers. We discuss a couple of acronyms that pertain to one’s success and how Jason helps other people and business owners check off their to-do lists and realize their goals. Show Highlights: What the GTD methodology is. How Jason helps people work through exercises and create new habits. How GTD improves work performance and mental health at Arkus. Jason’s favorite resources for people who want to get things done. Links: Twitter Account LinkedIn Account GitHub Account Arkus GTD, The Book GTD, The TED Talk 

Karen Fidelak is the Product Manager for DevOps Center here at Salesforce. DevOps Center is a new product at Salesforce that provides an end-to-end experience to help low code and industry-pro developers manage their changes and releases while developing on the Salesforce platform. Through DevOps, developers of all kinds are able to work together when they have been incompatible in the past. In this episode, we talk with Karen about DevOps Center, what it means to admins and developers, and some of its details and implementations. We discuss the goal of bringing everything together and the modern best practices to provide a better and easier-to-use, more modern interface. Listen in to learn more! Show Highlights: How Karen got into product management and with Salesforce. What the day-to-day looks like for Karen at Salesforce.  What DevOps Center is and how it helps all types of developers. The three benefits of leaving change set behind and moving forward with DevOps are. How GitHub integration works. Where CI CD comes into play with DevOps. Links: Twitter account Linkedin account DevOps Trailblazer Community  

Amit Chaudhary is a principal technical architect at InfoServices. In 2016, Amit had just moved to the United States and was working from home, so he created a group for developers to connect to make friends in his new city. This grew into a program and community that he now calls Apex Hours.  In this episode, we discuss Apex Hours and how it has become a community-driven program. Salesforce experts create content every week for other developers to learn from. They believe that everyone has something to learn from each other and are growing in their technical skills together. Listen in to learn more from Amit on Apex Hours and how they are impacting the developer community. Show Highlights: What Amit does as the principal Salesforce architect. How Apex Hours organically came into existence. What led Amit to provide Sales Cloud-focused material through Apex Hours. Amit’s tips for people who are interviewing in the Salesforce ecosystem. What the Salesforce inspector Chrome extension is. What exciting content and events are upcoming from Apex Hours. Links: Twitter account: twitter.com/amit_sfdc Linkedin account: linkedin.com/in/amitchaudhary21/ Apex Hours website: apexhours.com/  

Roopa Mohan is the principal software engineer for the Code Analyzer team here at Salesforce. She loved computers when she was introduced to them in sixth grade and decided she wanted to do coding. The only company she applied to work at, Salesforce, hired her. In this episode, Roopa shares information about how Salesforce Code Analyzer came to be and what is in its future. She discusses how it works, who it works best for, and other tools that it works well in conjunction with.  Listen in to learn more about Salesforce Code Analyzer and how it can be used in your operations. Show Highlights: What Code Analyzer does for its clients, and who the target audience is. What PMD and its counterpart ESLint are. The customization options for PMD and the code analyzer’s role in the customization. What Code Analyzer 3.0 does for retired JavaScript libraries. What might be the future regarding developer tooling and AI technology. Links: Twitter account: @rmohan_sfdc Linkedin account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roopa-mohan-21a85b20/ Github account: @rmohan20 Links related to Code Analyzer: Public documentation: https://forcedotcom.github.io/sfdx-scanner/ Open-source repo: https://github.com/forcedotcom/sfdx-scanner Blogs: https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2020/10/improve-your-code-quality-with-the-salesforce-cli-scanner https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/2022/10/develop-even-more-secure-code-with-salesforce-code-analyzer

Greg Kihlström is the Principal and Chief Strategist at GK5A, a marketing consultant agency in Arlington, VA. He’s a consultant to many C-level types and an expert in marketing. He also hosts The Agile Brand podcast and is the author of 11 books. CDP has become a popular subject since the launch of Salesforce Genie, and in this episode, Greg shares a plethora of information about it. We talk about what CDP is, what the moving parts are, what it means to technical architects and developers, and more. Greg is an insightful resource in the marketing and branding space. Listen in to learn from someone who is immersed in marketing and knows the ins and outs of CDPs and CRMs. Show Highlights: What an agile brand is and how it works with marketing and branding What CDP stands for, and what it does What the data points are that we apply back to the CDP If there are regulations surrounding CDP for consumer privacy What type of companies benefit from a CDP, and the risks of not using it How Greg thinks generative AI impacts marketing Links: Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom The Agile Brand podcast: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com/theagilebrandpodcast Agile Guide on CDP: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com/agile-brand-guide-to-cdps GK5A website: https://www.gk5a.com  

Oleh Mykytyn is the strategic relationship director at the Salesforce partner company Red Tag. Oleh has always had a knack for computers and coding and fit right in with Salesforce after winning a hoodie in 2014 for finishing five badges. In 2017, Oleh was a part of the team that began the Salesforce Developer Group in the Ukraine. Recently, Oleh had a presentation on Apex and record triggered flows, where he discussed which is better. In this episode, we dive into Oleh’s latest presentation topic, beginning with the question, do we need both Apex and record triggered flows? Oleh answers when it’s best to use Apex over Flow, which one’s faster, which one’s better to maintain, and more. We also touch on use cases for wrapper classes and Oleh’s role on the Salesforce product advisory board. Show Highlights: Do we need both record triggered flows and Apex triggers? When it’s best to use Apex over Flow. If Apex is faster than Flow. Which is better to maintain.  How easy is it for a developer to pick up the modern version of Flow? How Apex and Flow interact with each other. Use cases for wrapper classes. Oleh’s role on Salesforce’s product advisory board. Links: Follow Oleh on Twitter Follow Oleh on LinkedIn Follow Oleh on Github salesforceben.com/what-is-wrapper-class-in-salesforce redtag.pro/blog/keeping-up-with-salesforce-leaders-worldwide

Rafael Hernandez is a specialist leader at Deloitte and an avid member of the Salesforce community around the world. However, especially in Mexico where students don’t always have the same opportunities in web development, and consulting. Rafael has committed to providing learning opportunities for college kids so they may get involved and be successful within the Salesforce economy. In this episode, Rafael discusses how coding came easy to him and when he was introduced to Salesforce. He goes into how he started a community within Salesforce and how he teaches students to be consultants by teaching them soft skills. Rafael is so passionate about what he offers that it almost sounds too good to be true. Listen in to get a sense of Rafael’s excitement for his charitable causes and how he is preparing college students for adulthood. Show Highlights: How Rafael got started in coding and joined Salesforce. When and why Rafael began the community portion of Salesforce. How he teaches students soft skills and prepares them to be consultants. What happens after people graduate from his class. The benefit of pairing students with nonprofits in Mexico. What the Kerrnandez Foundation is, and how it started. How Rafael’s book, “¡Soy Adulto! (¿Ahora Qué?)” came to be. Links: Rafael on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafablazer/ Rafael on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rafablazer Rafael’s website: https://rafahernandez.org/ Kerrnandez Foundation: https://www.kerrnandez.org/ 

Rishabh Poddar is the CTO and co-founder of SuperTokens, an open source user authentication service. Rishabh has always been fascinated with computers and began coding when he was 12 years old. Programming came easily to him, and he loved doing it, so he went to school for computer science and made it his career. In this episode, we have a conversation about creating SuperTokens and how they work compared to other authentication techniques. Rishabh shares how to prevent impersonation, the architecture of SuperTokens, tips for JavaScript developers, and more. Show Highlights: Rishabh’s earliest memory with a computer. Why he created an operating system from scratch. What got Rishabh interested in authentication. What a rotating refresh token is. What SuperTokens core strength is. How passwordless authentication works. What cross origin resource sharing (CORS) is. What the SuperTokens business model us. Links: Rishabh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rishpoddar Rishabh on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishabh-poddar-b64b73129/ Rishabh on Github: https://github.com/rishabhpoddar

Rob Katz is the VP of Product Management for our Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology here at Salesforce. He got into product management as he was getting ready to finish up his MBA and came to work for big companies like Amazon and Alexa. In this episode, Rob and I are talking all about ethics. We discuss Ethics by Design, data ethics when it comes to building applications, and even more. Tune in to get a deeper understanding of the ethics of technology. Show Highlights: Rob’s winding career journey. What he worked on at Alexa as the dedicated privacy project manager. What he does in his current role at The Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology. The lifecycle of Ethics by Design. Examples of well-intended designs that ended up having unintended consequences. What developers should think about in regards to ethics when building a new application. What consequence scanning workshops are. Links: Rob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertskatz/ How to Run a Consequence Scanning Workshop – https://medium.com/salesforce-ux/how-to-run-a-consequence-scanning-workshop-4b14792ea987 What is Ethics by Design? https://www.salesforce.com/blog/what-is-ethics-by-design/ Responsible Marketing / Responsible Personalization – https://www.salesforce.com/blog/responsible-marketing-principles/ New Research Reveals 4 Ways Businesses Can Maximize Trust & Savings with Personalization – https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/salesforce-ethical-data-management-report/ Data Ethics in our Help & Training Documentation – https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.c360a_ethics.htm&type=5

Kathy Baxter is the Principal Architect for Ethical AI Practice here at Salesforce. Ethics and AI is a complex topic but Kathy is truly an expert. She started researching it in 2016 when she first learned how toxicity and bias can end up creeping into AI.  Today, Kathy is joining us to talk all about Ethical AI. In our conversation, we also discuss how technical products can use ethics and AI. Join us to learn all about this interesting facet of our industry. Show Highlights: How Kathy got into this line of work. What an AI-first company is. How toxicity can creep into chatbots. Why ethical AI is so important in a company like Salesforce. Unique things Salesforce uses AI for. AI considerations developers should think about from the beginning of the development of an application. Where AI can’t replace human intuition. Links: Kathy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/baxterkb Kathy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathykbaxter/ Kathy on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@baxterkb Responsible Creation of AI Trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/responsible-creation-of-artificial-intelligence Building Ethical and Inclusive Products Trailmix: sfdc.co/EthicalandInclusiveProducts Salesforce Trusted AI Site & Resources: salesforceairesearch.com/trusted-ai AI Ethics Maturity Model: sfdc.co/EAIMM  

Lisa White is a Software Engineer over at TaskRay. Over the years, Lisa has tried out a variety of careers and had to make many career decisions. Throughout her experiences, she learned JavaScript and eventually found her way to TaskRay. In this episode, I sit down with Lisa to talk about her journey. She tells us the story of how she got into software engineering, learned JavaScript, and developed her career from there. She also gives some great advice for those who are junior developers looking to get into this field.  Show Highlights: How Lisa got exposed to tech and Salesforce. Why her career shift felt like an identity shift. Her experience with Hack Reactor. How she morphed her JavaScript and React skills into Apex and LWC. Advice for junior developers. What made her want to talk about Javascript and date time at Dreamforce. Why third party data libraries are so helpful. Tips for those who want to get onstage at Dreamforce. Links: Lisa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lmbel Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitelisab/ Lisa on Github: https://github.com/whitelisab Lisa’s website: https://www.whitelisab.com/  

On this episode, we are pleased to welcome Jessica Murphy to the show. We talk about Jessica’s journey into discovering development with Salesforce and the influence others have had on those experiences, as well as sharing those experiences with Salesforce Saturdays. She is a co-conspirator of Salesforce Saturdays in Phoenix since 2015 with two other women with the goal of helping other developers find success. Salesforce Saturdays occur around the country in various coffee shops and sometimes office locations, as a casual environment to educate and empower people. Their success stories are amazing, as some people have attended Salesforce Saturdays and then gone on to accomplish their goals. They also encourage people to give back. For example, they had an attendee come back to hire others at a Salesforce Saturday when he was looking for employees. There are always new people who want to learn Salesforce, so it is an exciting environment, and all are welcome. Just come – you don’t need any special qualifications! The door is open for you to join a Salesforce Saturday near you. Show highlights Jessica’s journey to becoming a woman in technology The profound influence education has had on her life and the confidence it has given her Introduction to Trailhead and how it ties into your commitment to making yourself better The opportunities presented through Salesforce that have had an amazing impact on Jessica People learn things different ways, so there are various hurdles to learning Salesforce The evolution, impact and growth of Trailhead and all the options available that it is supporting Ways you can participate in Salesforce Saturday. Your help is valuable! Everyone is a leader in this group setting and we support each other Resources Jessica Murphy on LinkedIn Jessica on Twitter Salesforce Saturday website Salesforce Saturday on LinkedIn The many shout outs for this episode Sheena Smith Rachel Watson Paula Nelson Bonny Hinners Steph Herrera Shonnah Hughes Nadina Lisbon Tami Lau Brian Kwong Jen W. Lee Chris Duarte David Liu    

Today, we’ve got a guest host! I’m partnering with my partner in crime, Mike Gerholdt, as he’s taking over the host seat and interviewing our good friend and colleague, Domenique Buxton. Domenique is the VP Executive Creative Director for Trailblazers and Trailhead. She has also played a major part in the development of Salesforce characters, something that has built connection and meaning within the Salesforce community.  Throughout Mike’s conversation with Domenique, they discuss the history of the Salesforce characters, including how they came to be, why they were created, and more! Show Highlights: The origin story of Salesforce characters. Why they created the characters the way they did. How the characters have evolved over the years. How the characters got connected with a deeper purpose. Where community feedback has been crucial in the development of Salesforce characters. Some of Domenique’s special memories from events. The teamwork that brought the characters to light. Links: SaaSy breaking it down Domenique: @LittleIglooo Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns Gillian: @GillianKBruce Mike: @MikeGerholdt