Quite often I get asked the question "How did you end up working with Salesforce.com?".
The short answer is (and I'm dead honest) - Accidentally!
Shortly after migrating to Australia, I started looking for a Web Developer position (front or back end, was not fussed), to continue my professional career. Three months later (no one was considering my applications due to not having any work experience in Australia), I went for an interview at a small company which had advertised a "Web/Salesforce Developer" position. After talking to my colleagues, I found out that they could not find pure Salesforce.com talent, so they took a stab at getting someone with Web Development experience and train them up, hence they advertised the position as "Web/Salesforce".
At the time of submitting the application I did not even bother looking at the title - I was only looking for the keywords "Web" and "Developer", everything else was irrelevant to me as my main goal was to get into the market (it was taking too long).
Apparently I submitted my application 10 minutes before the deadline and I got an interview the next day. After 7 or 8 other people, I was the last one to be interviewed and I guess I ticked all the boxes. As soon as I left the building and started driving home, I got a call from the company, putting up an offer which I did not even consider, I just accepted it.
First day at work, a couple of hours induction and straight into it. My manager tells me to navigate to "Salesforce.com" and login with some credentials. My first response:
"Is this your product? Did you guys build this?"... Followed by people rolling on the floor laughing...
I had literally no idea what Salesforce.com is or what it does, I had never heard of it before. The good thing was that I was able to put my JavaScript experience into practice on the second day. I read how Visualforce and Apex work and off I went to write 2000-3000 lines of JavaScript into a Visualforce, mind you, it had to be optimised to work on IE 6 (Did I just write that?). In parallel to that, I was learning about the rest of the features of the platform, on the job. There was the official documentation and some cheat sheets from what I remember, but no other good training or tutorials were available.
Over the first year of my journey I learned quite a lot - mainly VF and Apex, but also a lot of things around Managed Packages, Integration, Workflows, Formulas and many other bits and pieces. Following the release notes, noticing the growth of the company itself (Salesforce.com) and most importantly, the Salesforce Community, were the main reasons I'm still working on this platform today.
It's a great place to be! I have not seen more engaging and more supportive community out there, we're one great family! I would have not been where I am at the moment if it wasn't for the Community, the local User Groups, the MVP's, StackExchange, Trailhead, and many other great resources which I've talked about previously. If I could go back in time and there was one thing I wish we all as Developers had back then, it would be Salesforce StackExchange - it's without a doubt the most valuable resource, for me personally!
P.S. Don't forget to check out Salesforce Developer Career eBook!
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