Backend Engineering

Backend Engineering

The backend career roadmap. Building APIs and services, databases and storage, distributed systems thinking, performance and scaling, reliability, and how to operate as a senior backend engineer.

Learner → JuniorTopics 1–11
  • ·What Backend Actually Is
  • ·Pick a Language & Framework
  • ·HTTP, REST, JSON
  • ·Your First API
  • ·Databases & SQL
  • ·Auth Basics
  • ·Validation & Error Handling
  • ·Logging & Tooling
  • ·Testing the Backend
  • ·Deploying Something Real
  • ·What Junior Looks Like
Start Learner → Junior →
Junior → SeniorTopics 12–22
  • ·Schema Design Beyond CRUD
  • ·Indexing & Query Performance
  • ·Migrations Without Downtime
  • ·Caching
  • ·Background Jobs & Queues
  • ·API Design Beyond REST
  • ·Pagination, Filtering, Search
  • ·Concurrency Models
  • ·Observability
  • ·Security in Practice
  • ·Code Organisation
Start Junior → Senior →
Senior → StaffTopics 23–34
  • ·Distributed Systems Basics
  • ·CAP, Consistency, Replication
  • ·Event-Driven Architecture
  • ·Microservices vs Monolith
  • ·Scaling Postgres
  • ·NoSQL & Choosing Stores
  • ·API Versioning & Contracts
  • ·Reliability & SRE
  • ·Performance Engineering
  • ·Multi-Tenancy & Isolation
  • ·Cost Engineering
  • ·Senior Code Review
Start Senior → Staff →
Principal & AboveTopics 35–45
  • ·Architecting at Scale
  • ·Tech Strategy
  • ·Platform Engineering
  • ·Multi-Region & Global
  • ·Data Platforms
  • ·Migrations at Scale
  • ·Influence Without Authority
  • ·Mentoring Backend Engineers
  • ·Incident Leadership
  • ·Hiring & Interviews
  • ·The Long Game
Start Principal & Above →