"This document serves as a comprehensive learning path for mastering backend development. Structured with clarity and depth, it evolves with time and experience, curated to be your lifelong companion in backend engineering."
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- 2.1 Monolith
- 2.2 Microservices
- 2.3 Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
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- 3.1 REST APIs
- 3.2 GraphQL
- 3.3 gRPC
- 3.4 API Gateway
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Core Infrastructure Components
- 4.1 Load Balancers
- 4.2 Caching
- 4.3 Rate Limiting
- 4.4 Cron Jobs & Scheduled Tasks
Backend refers to the server-side of an application responsible for handling business logic, database interactions, authentication, and integration with external services.
It powers everything the user sees on the frontend and ensures data consistency, security, and scalability.
- All logic, routes, services, and data access layers are bundled in a single codebase.
- Easy to start but harder to scale and maintain as the codebase grows.
Learn more: https://www.atlassian.com/microservices/microservices-architecture/microservices-vs-monolith
- Application is split into small, independent services.
- Each service handles a specific business capability.
- Communicate via HTTP/gRPC/Message Brokers.
Learn more: https://aws.amazon.com/microservices/
- Predecessor to microservices, similar but often uses enterprise protocols like SOAP.
- Stateless architecture
- HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
- Resource-based URLs and JSON responses
Resource: https://restfulapi.net/
- Single endpoint
- Flexible querying
- Ideal for frontend-heavy apps
Resource: https://graphql.org/learn/
- High-performance, protocol buffer-based RPC framework
- Best for internal service communication
- Handles routing, authentication, rate-limiting, and logging
Resource: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/apigateway/latest/developerguide/welcome.html
- Distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers
- Helps in fault tolerance and scalability
Resource: https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/load-balancer/http-load-balancer/
- Temporary storage for frequently accessed data
- Tools: Redis, Memcached
- Strategies: Write-through, Write-back, Cache Aside
- Protects services from abuse
- Algorithms: Token Bucket, Leaky Bucket
- Tools: express-rate-limit (Node.js), nginx rate limiting
- Scheduled background tasks
- Linux
cron, Node.jsnode-cron, AWS EventBridge
Resource: https://crontab.guru/
- Structured schema: MySQL, PostgreSQL
- ACID compliant
- Schema-less: MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra
- Useful for flexible and scalable data models
- Normalization, Indexing, Query Optimization, Transactions
- Session-based vs Token-based (JWT)
- OAuth2, OpenID Connect
- RBAC, ABAC access control models
- Horizontal vs Vertical scaling
- Caching strategies
- Message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka)
- CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins
- Docker & Kubernetes
- Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, Pulumi
- Tools: Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, ELK Stack
- Metrics, logs, traces (observability stack)
- Input sanitization, validation
- HTTPS everywhere
- JWT secrets management
- OAuth2 flows and scopes
| Language | Frameworks | Databases | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
| Node.js | Express.js, Fastify | MongoDB, Redis | PM2, Nodemailer |
| Python | Flask, Django, FastAPI | PostgreSQL, Redis | Celery, Gunicorn |
| Go | Gin, Fiber | MySQL, Cassandra | gRPC, Cobra |
| Java | Spring Boot | Oracle, MongoDB | Maven, Kafka |
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications – Martin Kleppmann
- Clean Architecture – Robert C. Martin
- The Art of Scalability – Abbot & Fisher
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| API | Interface allowing different systems to communicate |
| REST | Stateless architecture for APIs over HTTP |
| Microservice | Independent service handling a specific business task |
| Load Balancer | Tool to distribute traffic among servers |
| Cron Job | Scheduled task that runs automatically |
| OAuth2 | Protocol for secure user authorization |
| Rate Limiting | Restriction on how often an API can be called |
| Container | Lightweight isolated application environment (e.g., Docker) |
| CI/CD | Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery for automation |
| Message Queue | Manages communication between services asynchronously |
"Start slow, go deep. Learn the fundamentals before frameworks. Build, break, fix, and repeat."
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