Salesforce Heroku Architect Exam Guide | Apps, Data Services & Integrations

Salesforce Architect • Platform Credential

Salesforce Heroku Architect Exam Guide

Architect, secure and operate Heroku-based applications integrated with Salesforce. This guide covers the Salesforce Certified Heroku Architect exam – core topics, domains, study strategy and scenario-style practice questions focused on Heroku apps, data services and Heroku Connect.

Who is the Heroku Architect Certification For?

The Heroku Architect exam is designed for technical leaders who design and operate Heroku platforms at scale. You’re a good fit if you:

• Lead teams building Heroku apps in Node.js, Java, Python, Ruby or other languages.
• Design pipelines, review apps and CI/CD for cloud-native delivery.
• Use Heroku Postgres, Redis, Kafka and add-ons as part of your architecture.
• Integrate Heroku workloads with Salesforce using Heroku Connect and APIs.
• Own decisions around security, compliance, scaling and operations on Heroku.

This credential assumes solid Heroku hands-on experience, often following the Heroku Developer/Heroku-based project work plus general Salesforce architect skills.

Exam Overview

📊 Exam at a Glance

Exam Name	Salesforce Certified Heroku Architect
Format	Proctored, multiple-choice / multiple-select, architecture-focused
Duration	105 minutes
Number of Questions	~60 scored questions (+ a few unscored items)
Passing Score	Typically in the low–mid 70% range (always confirm in the latest exam guide)
Registration Fee	$400 USD (Retake: $200 USD)
Recommended Background	2–3+ years designing and running Heroku apps, plus experience with Heroku Connect, pipelines, security and monitoring.

🧠 What this Exam Focuses On

Questions test whether you can architect:

• Heroku app architectures using dynos, buildpacks and pipelines.
• Heroku data services – Postgres, Redis and add-ons – for resilience and performance.
• Heroku Connect patterns to sync Salesforce and Heroku data.
• Security, compliance and governance for enterprise workloads.
• Operational strategies – monitoring, logging, scaling and incident response.

Dynos & Scaling Heroku Postgres Heroku Connect Pipelines & CI/CD Security & Ops

Heroku Architect Domains

Salesforce may adjust domain labels and weights over time. Use the following as a practical grouping of Heroku Architect topics and always confirm in the official exam outline.

🔍 View High-Level Domains & Concepts

• Heroku Platform Architecture – Dynos, buildpacks, region choices, routing, scaling strategies and app design.
• Data, Add-ons & Heroku Postgres – Postgres plans, HA, followers, backups, Redis, and how to choose appropriate data services for workloads.
• Heroku Connect & Salesforce Integration – Mapping models, sync patterns, handling conflicts, and designing around latency and limits.
• Pipelines, CI/CD & Team Collaboration – Pipelines, review apps, environments, continuous delivery and collaboration patterns.
• Security, Compliance & Operations – Access control, secrets management, network controls, observability and incident response.

The exam expects you to compare patterns and choose the best design – e.g. which Postgres topology, which integration pattern or which scaling approach to use in a given scenario.

🆕 Recent Themes (High-Level)

• Emphasis on secure configuration, credential management and networking options.
• End-to-end architectures mixing Salesforce, Heroku and external services.
• Modern DevOps practices with pipelines, review apps and continuous delivery.
• Improved focus on observability – logging, metrics and alerting strategies.

Key Design Areas for Heroku Architects

☁️ Heroku App Architecture & Dynos

• Choose dyno types (standard, performance, private) for different workloads.
• Design stateless apps to support horizontal scaling.
• Use buildpacks and environment variables effectively across environments.
• Plan for routing, concurrency and long-running processes vs workers.

🗄️ Data Services & Add-ons

• Pick the right Postgres plan and topology (followers, HA, read-replicas).
• Use Heroku Redis for caching and ephemeral workloads.
• Incorporate add-ons (monitoring, logging, messaging) into platform designs.
• Design backup, restore and disaster-recovery strategies for data services.

🔄 Heroku Connect & Salesforce

• Decide which objects to sync and how frequently.
• Understand Read/Write vs Read-Only mappings and their trade-offs.
• Handle conflict resolution and data-quality issues.
• Design patterns that combine Heroku APIs, Connect and external integrations.

🚀 Pipelines, CI/CD & Collaboration

• Structure pipelines for dev, staging and production environments.
• Leverage review apps for feature validation.
• Connect pipelines with external CI tools for automated testing.
• Manage access and collaboration across teams and environments.

🛡️ Security, Compliance & Operations

• Manage secrets via config vars and secure add-ons.
• Apply principle of least privilege for access to apps and data services.
• Implement logging, monitoring and alerting across all tiers.
• Prepare runbooks and incident-response processes for critical apps.

Where Heroku Architect Fits in Your Journey

There is no enforced pre-requisite path, but many candidates follow something like:

• 1️⃣ Foundation: Solid web application development experience (Node.js, Java, etc.).
• 2️⃣ Platform Skills: Hands-on experience deploying and scaling apps on Heroku.
• 3️⃣ Data & Connect: Projects using Heroku Postgres, Redis and Heroku Connect with Salesforce.
• 4️⃣ DevOps & Ops: Responsibility for pipelines, CI/CD, monitoring and incident response.
• 5️⃣ Exam: Attempt Heroku Architect when you regularly make platform-level decisions.

The goal of the exam is to validate that you can act as a platform architect – not just deploy a single app, but design how Heroku fits into the broader Salesforce and enterprise landscape.

4-Week Study Plan (Adjust to Your Experience)

This plan assumes you already have apps running on Heroku. If you’re newer, extend each week and add more hands-on labs and Trailhead modules.

Week 1 – Understand the Exam & Platform Overview

• Read the official Heroku Architect exam guide thoroughly.
• Review how your current Heroku apps are structured (dynos, buildpacks, regions).
• Study reference architectures for 12-factor apps and Heroku’s runtime model.
• Identify gaps in your knowledge – e.g. certain add-ons, data features or Connect features.

Week 2 – Data Services & Heroku Connect

• Deep dive into Heroku Postgres – plans, HA, followers, backups, performance.
• Experiment with Heroku Redis for caching and background processing.
• Set up a sample project using Heroku Connect to sync Salesforce data.
• Practice designing mappings, sync strategies and conflict-resolution approaches.

Week 3 – Pipelines, CI/CD & Operations

• Configure pipelines with development, staging and production apps.
• Use review apps for pull request validation.
• Integrate CI (e.g. GitHub Actions, CircleCI) to run automated tests on deploy.
• Set up logging, metrics and alerts using Heroku add-ons (or external tools).

Week 4 – Security, Scenarios & Mock Exams

• Review security and compliance considerations for Heroku and connected services.
• Work through scenario-based questions, focusing on trade-offs and justification.
• Document 2–3 “reference architectures” – e.g. API backend, event-driven microservices, Salesforce-sidecar app.
• Take timed practice question sets to simulate the actual exam experience.

Sample Scenario-Style Questions

Question 1

A customer is migrating a monolithic on-premise application to Heroku. The app has sudden, unpredictable spikes in traffic, and the team wants to scale horizontally during these peaks while keeping costs reasonable outside of peak hours. Which approach should the architect recommend?

1. Use a single large performance dyno that can handle all possible peak traffic, regardless of average usage.
2. Design the app to be stateless and scale by adding or removing standard web dynos based on traffic, using monitoring and autoscaling policies.
3. Scale vertically by switching dyno types manually during peak periods only.
4. Run all traffic through a single worker dyno and use web dynos only for static content.

Correct Answer: B

Heroku is optimized for horizontal scaling. Stateless apps that can scale out by adding or removing web dynos are the most flexible and cost-effective for variable traffic.

Question 2

A Salesforce customer wants to build a customer portal on Heroku that displays near real-time Salesforce data and allows customers to update limited information. They also need to run analytics queries on large datasets without impacting Salesforce performance. Which combination best meets the requirement?

1. Call Salesforce REST APIs directly from Heroku on every page view and for every data change; store no data on Heroku.
2. Use Heroku Connect to synchronize relevant Salesforce objects into Heroku Postgres, build the portal against Postgres and push allowed changes back via Heroku Connect.
3. Export nightly CSVs from Salesforce into Heroku Postgres and block all customer updates.
4. Use an external ETL tool to mirror data into a separate warehouse and connect the portal directly to the warehouse.

Correct Answer: B

Heroku Connect provides near real-time sync between Salesforce and Postgres, enabling responsive portals and offloading analytical queries from Salesforce.

Question 3

An enterprise runs multiple mission-critical apps on Heroku. The CISO asks for an architecture that minimizes blast radius between apps, improves network isolation and provides more control over inbound traffic. Which pattern should the Heroku Architect prioritize?

1. Run all apps in a single Heroku account with shared private spaces and default routing.
2. Use separate pipelines for each app but keep them all in the same default Heroku region.
3. Architect the solution using Heroku Private Spaces or Shield Spaces as appropriate, grouping apps by trust level and using private networking and controlled ingress.
4. Place all apps behind a single third-party load balancer and keep the existing Heroku configuration unchanged.

Correct Answer: C

Private/Shield Spaces provide stronger network isolation and control, which aligns with enterprise security requirements and helps limit blast radius between applications.

Tip: As you study, always ask: “How does this decision affect scalability, resilience, security and developer productivity across the entire Heroku platform?”