Even if you just want to develop fancy APIs and backend systems:
It’s key to learn how front-end development works and how to better serve its needs. To do so, you can start by learning some CSS and HTML.
There are an awful lot of amazing free resources about HTML and CSS out there, I’ve personally reviewed some:
Create a Portfolio: Develop Your First Project
We mainly learn by solving problems, to solve problems we need to practice, to practice we need to create projects.
Creating a Portfolio while walking your journey to becoming a backend developer, is a great way to both: practice and exercise what you learn.
You will have time to come back and add some proper backend, with its interactions, a database, and probably some data handling and exchange through APIs endpoints.
At this point though, you should be skilled enough to start This not only will be a great training field, but also a way to make some good side income.
Store Your Backend Code in a Repo — Learn Git/Version Control
Git is an opensource version control system, that allows you to:
- Keep track of your changes.
- Back up your code.
- Avoid disastrous consequences.
- Collaborate seamlessly.
If hosted on a web service such as GitHub, it allows you to synchronize your code with collaborators, keeping your codebase(repositories) on the web, free to be moved between devices.
Learn the Fundamentals of Web Security
Unfortunately, the world is full of bad people ready to steal and use your data, and that of your customers. Knowing how to properly store and secure data and communications, is key for a backend developer.
Understand the fundamentals of web security and how to handle private information the right way:
- CORS.
- HTTP/HTTPS.
- Basic Hashing.
- Authentication.
Those are only some of the concepts you’ll work with while developing your backends and securing your API endpoints.
Add a Pinch of Interactivity— JavaScript
Learning JavaScript is one of the best investments you can make as a developer. Adding interactivity to your websites, as well as data manipulation will completely change your projects.
In this Backend roadmap, we’re learning how to create our APIs using JavaScript, hence is pretty fundamental to learn it before digging deeper into backend frameworks and libraries.
The Start of Your Backend Journey — Node.js and NPM
There’s no JavaScript backend developer without Node.js and NPM.
The Node.js runtime is the software stack responsible for installing your web service’s code, its dependencies, and running your service. Is an asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime, designed to build scalable network applications.
Used by companies such as Netflix, Uber, and NASA, it’s something a JavaScript backend developer should know this year.
NPM, is the Node Package Manager, responsible for handling, installing, and importing your Node.js based libraries.
Resources to learn Node.js:
Create Powerful APIs: learn Express.js
Even if you could potentially create full APIs just by using Node.js, this isn’t convenient.
Express comes to our help:
A minimal and flexible Node.js framework that will help you creating APIs effortlessly thanks to a myriad of HTTP methods and middleware. Express.js powers thousands of backends around the world, suitable for the most diverse REST APIs.
Connect Your Backend to a Database
What’s the difference between SQL and NoSQL databases?
Should I use Postgres or MongoDB?
Databases are a huge part of backend development, as those are the places where your data will be usually stored.
Learning how to create, manage, edit and connect SQL and NoSQL databases, is key for a backend
Should I learn NoSQL or SQL database?
As always: it depends.
Both systems have their pros and cons, which make them great in different scenarios.
My suggestion? Pick both a NoSQL and a SQL database to learn.
I’ve personally tried an awful lot of DB systems, ending up using:
- Postgre as a SQL DB.
- MongoDB as a NoSQL DB.
SQL Database: learn PostgreSQL
One of the most popular SQL databases of the year: Postgre is an open-source DB system, with over 30 years of active development.
PostgreSQL has a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness,
NoSQL Database: learn MongoDB
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With over 12 years of active development, MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL Databases to date.
Hosted by AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, MongoDB stores the data of thousands of tools and platforms out there.
Ship You Backend Faster: Continuous Delivery & Dev Ops.
Amazon famously delivers new code every 11.6 seconds. Just a few years ago, this was unthinkable.
This is thanks to Continuous delivery and Integration technologies: ways to ensure fast execution times, maximizing data gathering, and data-driven decisions.
DevOps stands for development and operations, and it’s a key skill to learn as a backend developer this year.
Learn by Doing: Create Projects
There’s no better way to retain notions than doing and solving problems.
Sometimes, finding backend projects to practice sounds hard though.
Just remember: backends are mainly comprised of APIs and Data Exchange, any project including those two domains, will do the job.
You might also want to start writing articles to share your knowledge, build an online presence, and earn from your tech writing skills.
Start Monetizing as a Backend Developer
At this point, you should be able to set up a proper REST API and get paid for it.
The best thing about programming is that: is free to get started and pays a lot.
There are hundreds of ways to monetize your backend development skills. From open source to APIs monetization, from tech writing to YouTube channels.
If you want to go deeper into monetization for developers, this is not a free resource but definitely worth the price:
Add Types to Your JavaScript Backend: TypeScript
Take JavaScript, add types and compile-time errors, and a much smarter IntelliSense: you’ll have TypeScript.
JavaScript is known to be a type-less language, Typescript “solves” this issue by bringing types (strings, numbers, etc), and a number of other features, to your code.
Great error handling, bug sorting, and code assistance, something a backend developer should know to create better APIs this year
Learn TypeScript in this free Udemy Course.
Pick a JavaScript Backend Framework
Choosing a JavaScript framework will introduce lots of commodities in your workflows.
Backend frameworks introduce things such as SSG, SSR, or utilities to speed up your development.
Before digging into a JavaScript backend framework is key to understand what those terms mean:
- SSG -> Static Site Generation.
- SSR -> Server-Side Rendering.
- CSR -> Client-Side Rendering.
Backend frameworks are usually based on front-end counterparts, such as React and Vue, strictly connecting your backend to your front-end.
There are many popular JS backend frameworks, such as:
- React/NextJS.
- Vue/NuxtJS.
- Gatsby.
React-Based Backend Frameworks: Next.js and
15.1 Next.js
React-based and Open-source, Next.js brings hybrid Static and Server-Side rendering to your backend development toolbox.
Originally developed by Vercel.com, you might want to explore their free hosting services as well.
