1. What is a backend engineer?
2. What to learn in a framework as a backend engineer?

On this post we are focusing on what you need to know about and have experience with in a framework. Specifically, we are assuming that this framework is used as the backend framework and we have a frontend application built with react or angular that consumes it.

#1 Master Language Fundamentals

Data types

Conditional(if) statements

Iteration(loop)

Class

Method

Data structure(List, Set, Map)

OOP

File

etc..

#2 Configuration

How to create a project

How to include dependencies like packages your project will need

How to write/update a configuration file with what your project needs like aws, database, 3rd party API keys, etc

How to profile your configuration so your project can run in different environments(local, dev, prod) with the right configurations

How to structure your code so that it’s easy to work with

#3 MVC

Controller (POST, PUT, GET, DELETE, Upload, Download file requests)

View (JSON or HTML)

Model

Service

#4 Database CRUD Operations

ORM

JdbcTemplate

Connection threadpool configurations

SQL queries

#5 Security

Authentication

Authorization

#6 Dependency Injection

Dependency Object Container

Dependency Object Lifecycle

How to create a dependency object

How to use a dependency object

#7 Testing

Unit tests with a mock framework

Integration tests

#8 Cache

Redis

#9 Consumer APIs

Consume a 3rd party API like Stripe

#10 Deployment

Deploy project to a live environment like aws or heroku

Optionals

You can add the following as you go. Some of these are one time setups and some are devop stuff. Depending on your situation you might have to set these up in case of a small or startup company or they might have been in place already or a devop team is taking care of them.

# OAuth2

Login with 3rd parties like Google or Facebook

# API endpoint documentation

Swagger with Springboot

# Docker

# AWS Webservices

# Elasticsearch

# Batch Jobs

A backend engineer is responsible for the server-side application logic and integration of the work front-end engineers do. Backend engineers are usually write the web services and APIs used by front-end engineers and mobile application engineers. The application logic is calculated using a server-site programming language such as Java, C++, C#, Python, Javascript, etc which backend engineers must have a strong understanding of. They are also responsible for saving, updating, and reading data from the database which means they must have a decent amount of knowledge of databases.