How to Become a Good Backend Engineer (Fundamentals)

I have been a backend engineer for over 20 years and I have witness technologies come and go. One thing however, always remains constant:

The first principles the tech is built on.

I don’t really mean tools, frameworks or even languages. Those evolve and change but the fundamental infrastructure on which the tools are built rarely does.

For example knowing how to setup Apache or IIS is one thing, understanding the commonalities and differences between the two web servers is another.

In this article I explore some of the fundamentals of backend engineering that are at the root of everything we use. You may choose to have basic understanding of all these fundamentals and become a jack-of-all-trades backend engineer or go vertical in one at deeper level and become expert in that area. There is no wrong or right, it all depends on what moves you.

The way to become a better backend engineer is never clean and straightforward. In fact, it is messy, it is full of trial and errors and experimentations that only you have to experience. There is no book, no course, no YouTube video or a medium article that can teach you everything there is about backend engineering. You have to experience it yourself.