What is Backend & Platform?
Backend & Platform is the engineering work that powers apps behind the scenes: APIs, databases, infrastructure, security, and reliability. If the product is a house, backend builds the plumbing and electricity so everything runs safely and fast.
Typical problems solved
- Designing and building APIs that mobile/web apps call
- Modeling data and choosing databases (SQL/NoSQL)
- Ensuring speed and scalability under high load
- Authentication, authorization, and security controls
- Background jobs, queues, and event-driven processing
- Deployments, observability, and cost control
How it looks in the real world
- Adding a new endpoint for the mobile app release
- Refactoring a slow database query and adding an index
- Containerizing services and rolling out with CI/CD
- Investigating a production incident with logs and metrics
- Reducing cloud costs by optimizing storage and caching
Who this is for
- You enjoy systems thinking: how parts connect and scale
- You like debugging, testing ideas, and improving reliability
- You prefer building foundations over pixel-perfect visuals
- You are comfortable learning tools and reading docs
Prerequisites
- Comfortable with at least one programming language (e.g., Python, Java, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, or C#)
- Basic terminal, Git, and problem-solving skills
- High-level understanding of HTTP and the web
Nice-to-have
- SQL basics (SELECT, JOIN, WHERE, indexes)
- Familiarity with containers (Docker) and Linux
Careers inside this direction
Common roles you can grow into:
- Backend Engineer — Designs, builds, and operates server-side applications and APIs. Works with databases, caching, security, and performance.
Explore the role card below for responsibilities, skills, and starter projects.
Where you can work
- Industries: fintech, e-commerce, healthtech, gaming, media, logistics, SaaS, cybersecurity, AI/ML platforms
- Company types: startups, scale-ups, big tech, consultancies, product companies, cloud providers, NGOs, gov tech
- Team setups: product squads, platform/infra teams, SRE/DevOps, data platform teams
Salary ranges by stage
Approximate global ranges in USD. Varies by country/company; treat as rough ranges.
- Junior: $50k–$90k
- Mid-level: $90k–$140k
- Senior/Staff: $130k–$200k+
Growth map
Foundations → Junior
- Build CRUD APIs; understand HTTP, REST; basic auth
- Solid in one language + framework
- SQL modeling, transactions, indexes
- Write tests; use Git effectively
Junior → Mid
- Design modular services; async jobs and queues
- Observability: logs, metrics, tracing, alerting
- Performance troubleshooting and caching
- Secure coding: input validation, secrets, least privilege
- CI/CD, containerization, cloud basics
Mid → Senior
- System design for scale, resiliency, and cost
- Data migrations with zero/low downtime
- Mentoring, code reviews, technical leadership
- Incident response and postmortems
- Architecture choices: monolith vs microservices, event-driven patterns
Tools & stack overview
Languages & frameworks
- Python (FastAPI, Django), Java (Spring), Go (Gin/Fiber), Node.js/TypeScript (Express/Nest), C# (.NET)
Datastores
- Relational: PostgreSQL, MySQL
- NoSQL: MongoDB, DynamoDB
- Caches: Redis, Memcached
- Search/analytics: Elasticsearch, OpenSearch
Messaging & streaming
- RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS/SNS, Google Pub/Sub
DevOps & platform
- Containers: Docker
- Orchestration: Kubernetes (basics)
- CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI
- Cloud: AWS, GCP, Azure
Observability & quality
- Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana
- Logging: ELK/EFK stacks
- Tracing: OpenTelemetry, Jaeger
- Testing: unit, integration, contract tests
Beginner roadmap (6 weeks)
A focused plan you can complete in 4–8 weeks. Pace it as needed.
- Week 1: Core programming refresh
- Variables, types, control flow, functions
- Data structures: arrays/lists, maps/dicts, sets
- Error handling and basic testing
- Daily mini-task: implement a simple calculator with tests
- Week 2: HTTP + API basics
- Build a CRUD REST API with one resource (e.g., /tasks)
- Add validation and simple auth (API key or basic JWT)
- Document endpoints with OpenAPI/Swagger
- Mini-task: return proper status codes for common errors
- Week 3: Databases + SQL
- Model entities and relationships
- Implement queries, indexes, and migrations
- Transaction basics and avoiding N+1 problems
- Mini-task: write a JOIN query and add an index to speed it up
- Week 4: Async work + caching
- Add a background job (email or report generator)
- Introduce a queue (in-memory or lightweight broker)
- Add Redis caching for a hot endpoint
- Mini-task: measure before/after latency
- Week 5: Testing, logging, and errors
- Unit tests for handlers/services
- Integration test with a real or test database
- Structured logs and correlation IDs
- Mini-task: create a graceful error handler
- Week 6: Packaging & deploy
- Containerize with Docker
- Add a basic CI pipeline (build, test)
- Deploy to a low-cost environment (local VM or free-tier cloud)
- Mini-task: create a health endpoint and readiness checks
Stretch goals
- Add role-based access control and rate limiting
- Introduce OpenAPI client generation for a mock frontend
- Add metrics (request duration, DB time) with Prometheus format
Common mistakes
- Skipping tests — increases risk when refactoring
- Overengineering microservices — start with a well-structured monolith
- Ignoring observability — logs/metrics/traces save hours during incidents
- Weak data modeling — leads to slow queries and complex code
- Hardcoding secrets — always use environment variables or a secrets store
Mini project ideas (build to learn)
Task Tracker API
Build a multi-user task API with CRUD, due dates, and labels.
- Users + auth (JWT)
- Tasks with indexing on status+due_date
- Search by text and label
- Rate limiting per user
- Dockerized app + database
Analytics Event Collector
Accept client events, queue them, and batch-insert into a warehouse table.
- POST /events endpoint with validation
- Queue or background worker
- Batch writes and retry with exponential backoff
- Dashboard metrics: events/min, failures
Image Processing Service
Upload, resize, and serve images with caching.
- Upload endpoint with size/type checks
- Background resize job
- CDN-like caching headers
- Signed URLs for access
Learning path
- Pick a language track (Python, Java, Go, Node/TS, or C#) and one web framework
- Learn RESTful API design and security basics
- Get comfortable with SQL and a relational database
- Add async processing and caching
- Introduce testing, logging, and metrics
- Containerize and set up CI; deploy to a simple environment
- Practice system design with small, realistic diagrams and trade-offs
Next steps
- Take the quick fit test on this page to gauge your alignment. Everyone can try it; logging in will save your progress.
- Review the Careers inside this direction section and pick Backend Engineer to start.
- Choose a language track and begin the 6-week roadmap. Build one mini project per week.