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The Salesforce Certified Platform Developer II exam is built for developers who are ready to move beyond foundational Salesforce development. It measures your ability to design, build, test, and deploy advanced programmatic solutions that are maintainable, reusable, scalable, and aligned with sound development practices.
If you already hold the Salesforce Certified Platform Developer credential and regularly work with Apex, Lightning Web Components, integrations, testing, and application architecture, PDII is the natural next step in your developer certification journey.
The exam contains 60 scored multiple-choice questions, may include up to five additional unscored questions, provides 120 minutes, and requires a 70% passing score.
Salesforce says a typical PDII candidate has two to four years of developer experience, including at least one year designing, implementing, and deploying solutions on the Lightning Platform.
Platform Developer II Exam Details
According to the current official Salesforce Platform Developer II Exam Guide, candidates should know these key details:
- Questions: 60 scored multiple-choice questions
- Unscored questions: Up to 5 additional questions
- Exam duration: 120 minutes
- Passing score: 70%
- Registration fee: US$200 plus applicable taxes
- Retake fee: US$100 plus applicable taxes
- Delivery: Online proctored or onsite testing center
- References: No hard-copy or online reference material is permitted
- Prerequisite: Salesforce Certified Platform Developer
The prerequisite is officially named Salesforce Certified Platform Developer. You may see candidates informally call it Platform Developer I or PDI, but Salesforce uses Platform Developer as the credential name. Salesforce also confirms that this certification is required before earning Platform Developer II.
What Does the Platform Developer II Exam Test?
Platform Developer II is not simply a harder Apex syntax exam. The bigger challenge is applying Salesforce development knowledge to realistic technical scenarios.
You may need to decide whether a requirement should be handled with declarative automation or Apex, select an appropriate asynchronous processing technique, troubleshoot inefficient code, choose an integration approach, or determine how an application should behave with large data volumes.
The official blueprint expects experience with areas including:
- Advanced Apex and trigger development
- Advanced SOQL
- Dynamic Apex
- Asynchronous Apex
- Platform Events
- REST and SOAP integrations
- Lightning Web Components
- Aura components
- Visualforce
- Apex managed sharing
- Custom Metadata Types and Custom Settings
- Apex mocks and stubs
- Jest testing
- Debugging and deployment
- Application performance and scalability
Salesforce emphasizes practical application throughout the exam objectives. That means preparation should focus on why and when you would choose a particular solution, not simply memorizing feature definitions.
Platform Developer II Exam Topics and Weightings
The official exam blueprint contains five domains:
- Process Automation, Logic, and Integration: 27%
- User Interface: 20%
- Testing, Debugging, and Deployment: 20%
- Performance: 18%
- Advanced Developer Fundamentals: 15%
Process Automation, Logic, and Integration:
This is the largest section of the exam.
It covers interactions between declarative and programmatic automation, Apex trigger best practices, error handling, transaction integrity, advanced SOQL, asynchronous Apex, Dynamic Apex, Platform Events, and programmatic integrations.
With more than one-quarter of the exam assigned to this domain, you should be particularly comfortable with architectural decisions involving Apex, automation, transactions, and external systems.
User Interface
This section covers Lightning Web Components, Aura components, Visualforce, Apex controllers, component communication, responsive interfaces, static resources, and error handling.
Do not focus only on how each technology works. Be prepared to identify which approach best fits a particular requirement.
Testing, Debugging, and Deployment
PDII expects deeper testing knowledge than simply reaching minimum code coverage.
Review Apex mocks and stubs, Lightning Web Component testing with Jest, Apex and JavaScript debugging, troubleshooting unexpected behavior, and source-driven development.
The goal is to understand how strong testing improves application reliability, maintainability, security, and deployment confidence.
Performance
Performance questions can test your ability to recognize code or architecture that may work with a small dataset but struggle at scale.
Study efficient SOQL, large data volumes, asynchronous callouts, UI performance, reusable code, bulk processing, and techniques for identifying inefficient application logic.
Advanced Developer Fundamentals
This domain includes localization, multicurrency, Salesforce sharing objects, Apex managed sharing, Custom Metadata Types, and Custom Settings.
Although it carries the smallest percentage, these concepts are important when building configurable, secure, and maintainable enterprise applications.
Is a Superbadge Required for Platform Developer II?
No.
This is an important change because older PDII preparation guides may still contain outdated requirements.
Salesforce retired the Advanced Apex Specialist superbadge requirement on October 1, 2025. Candidates no longer need that superbadge to earn Platform Developer II. You must still satisfy the Platform Developer prerequisite and pass the PDII certification exam.
Salesforce also confirms that removing the superbadge requirement did not change the skills measured by the Platform Developer II exam. The relevant development skills remain part of the certification objectives.
30-Day Platform Developer II Study Plan
Days 1-5: Refresh Advanced Fundamentals
Read the official exam guide from beginning to end and identify your weaker objectives.
Review sharing architecture, Apex managed sharing, Custom Metadata Types, Custom Settings, localization, multicurrency, transaction behavior, and advanced Apex fundamentals.
Days 6-10: Focus on Apex and Integration
Study asynchronous Apex, advanced SOQL, Dynamic Apex, Platform Events, Apex callouts, REST and SOAP integrations, and trigger design.
Practice deciding which development approach makes sense for different requirements rather than treating every problem as an Apex problem.
Days 11-15: Strengthen UI Development
Review Lightning Web Components, Aura components, and Visualforce.
Pay close attention to Apex controller interaction, component communication, responsive behavior, static resources, events, and error handling.
Days 16-20: Testing, Debugging, and Deployment
Work through Apex test design, mocks, stubs, Jest, debugging, deployment, and source-driven development.
When reviewing test code, ask whether it validates actual application behavior instead of focusing only on coverage percentages.
Days 21-24: Work on Performance
Study large data volumes, query efficiency, bulk processing, governor-limit considerations, asynchronous techniques, code reuse, and UI performance.
Practice reviewing code and identifying what could become inefficient as record volume increases.
Days 25-27: Use Official Salesforce Resources
Return to weak areas using Trailhead and Salesforce developer documentation.
Salesforce recommends combining hands-on experience, SalesforceKing training, Trailhead, and self-study for PDII preparation. Its official resources include Apex, Lightning Web Components, SOAP and REST APIs, SOQL and SOSL, Aura, Visualforce, and Salesforce development tools.
Days 28-30: Practice Under Exam Conditions
Finish with timed, scenario-based practice.
Review every incorrect answer and determine why your original choice was wrong. When a technical concept remains unclear, verify it against Salesforce documentation and, whenever possible, reproduce the scenario in a development environment.
Using Platform Developer II Practice Questions Effectively
A Platform Developer II Practice Test should help expose knowledge gaps after you have studied the official exam objectives.
When taking a Free Platform Developer II Practice Test, do more than count correct answers. Review the reasoning behind each question and identify the Salesforce concept being tested.
The same principle applies to Platform Developer II Practice Questions and Platform Developer II Practice Test Questions. Scenario-based practice is particularly valuable because PDII frequently requires you to choose between technically plausible solutions.
After reviewing the official blueprint, use our Platform Developer II practice material to test how confidently you can apply those concepts to exam-style scenarios.
Practice questions should reinforce knowledge, not replace Salesforce documentation or hands-on development. Avoid relying on resources that claim to reproduce live certification exam content.
Official Salesforce Study Resources
Salesforce recommends a combination of practical experience and self-study for Platform Developer II preparation. The official exam guide points candidates toward the Prepare for Your Salesforce Platform Developer II Certification, Apex learning resources, API material, Lightning Web Components documentation, SOQL and SOSL references, Aura documentation, Visualforce resources, and Salesforce development tools.
Start with the official blueprint, identify the areas where your hands-on experience is weakest, and use Salesforce documentation to close those gaps. For an advanced developer exam like PDII, understanding how Salesforce behaves in real development scenarios is far more valuable than memorizing isolated facts.