Thursday, October 3, 2024

10 Skills You Need to Get Hired as a Backend Developer

Being a backend developer is challenging. You have to be well-versed in multiple programming languages and frameworks, have a good understanding of databases, cloud platforms, and virtualization, and can efficiently deploy applications. In this article, we’ll show you how all these skills come together to get hired as a backend developer.

Here Are the 10 Key Backend Developer Skills

Learn Coding Languages

Languages are the most basic building blocks of any software. They allow you to manipulate data and execute code, so you need to know at least one language that will help you get a job as a backend developer.

The most common languages are:

  • Java
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • PHP/LAMP Stack (PHP, Apache/Nginx, MySQL/MariaDB)
  • .NET (C#)

But there is also C++ if your goal is to obtain more backend developer skills and work with OS or other platforms like Android or iOS. For example, JavaScript is commonly used because it runs on web browsers and Node.JS servers. Even though it isn’t technically considered an object-oriented language like Java or Python, JavaScript has become popular enough for many companies to develop new features using only this code instead of rewriting everything from scratch.

Know Databases

Databases are one of the pillars of backend development, and they’re critical to know well. It’s best to have a good handle on relational database management systems (RDBMS), including SQL, NoSQL, and other similar types of structured data like MongoDB.

Understand Frameworks

The third skill you need is understanding the various frameworks available to you and how they work. Frameworks allow developers to create web applications faster and more efficiently. They provide tested, reusable code that will enable you to focus on what needs to change in your application—the custom stuff—rather than building everything from scratch every time.

There are two main types of frameworks: frontend and backend. Frontend frameworks take care of things like user interfaces (UI). In contrast, backend frameworks handle communication between the server that hosts your website and users who access it via a browser on their computers or mobile devices.

Know Version Control Systems

A version control system is a tool that enables tracking changes made to code over time and collaborating with other team members. It is beneficial in product development services where multiple developers work on the same codebase simultaneously. It helps avoid conflicts when two people modify the same line of code at once or if one person deletes another’s work by mistake. It also makes it easy for everyone on your team to see what changes have been made since the last release, who was responsible for each shift, and what issues or who fixed bugs in each development iteration.

Several popular options are available today: Git is arguably the most widely used VCS software. However, many companies still use SVN due to Google’s influence on modern web apps.

Explore Cloud Platforms

Cloud platforms are designed to help developers build cloud-based applications quickly. They provide tools and frameworks for building scalable solutions in any environment. Learn these platforms: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure, if you want to train backend developer skills. They offer various services related to these technologies, such as database storage engines like MongoDB or MySQL, file storage systems like S3 or Blob Storage, compute engines like EC2 instances or GCE VMs, etc., serverless compute options as Lambda functions running on AWS Lambda service called “DynamoDB” or Azure Functions hosted at .NET Core runtime called “Azure Storage Queues.”

Amazon Web Services
Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik

Cloud computing involves using virtualized resources in the cloud. For example, you can use a single physical server to run multiple applications and store data instead of having one machine per application.

Master Virtualization Skills

Virtualization creates virtual machines (VMs) on a host operating system (OS). A VM runs inside an operating system installed on an actual physical computer but acts like a whole computer with its own disk drive space and memory. It also has access to all available hardware resources of its host OS so that multiple VMs can share one physical system and data.

Know Technology Stack-Specific Skills

If you are interviewing for a role as a backend developer, it is essential to know the technology stack your potential employer uses to prove your backend developer skills. Technology stacks consist of programming languages, web frameworks, and databases commonly used to build software applications. For example, Java is a language, Spring Framework is a framework, and MySQL is a database. You can use the following resources to find out the most common technology stacks in your desired industry.

Technology Stack-Specific Skills
Image by ArthurHidden on Freepik

Open-source technologies: This site lists all open-source technologies used by companies worldwide based on GitHub activity, such as GitHub stars (the number of times developers have starred their repositories). You can also check this list from StackShare, which ranks over 2,000+ software stacks based on popularity and usage within enterprises.

Learn to Be Concurrent

Concurrency is the ability for multiple tasks to be executed simultaneously. It means that tasks can run concurrently without waiting for one another. For example, if you’re making dinner, you can simultaneously chop vegetables while watching TV. The process of chopping vegetables doesn’t wait until there is no sound from your TV anymore; instead, both activities happen concurrently—you can switch between them easily without impacting each other’s progress or outcome (this is called asynchronous processing).

Explore Multithreading

Multithreading refers specifically to processes within applications that allow concurrent execution by splitting up work into smaller tasks executed simultaneously within one process/thread of execution. Multithreading and concurrency are two different things. However, they are related and often used interchangeably.

Be Communicative

The most important soft skill for a backend developer is communication. It’s critical to convey ideas clearly, manage emotions, deal with conflicts constructively, and be assertive without aggression.

If you want to get into the world of backend development, this post should give you an idea of what skills and knowledge you will need. Of course, it isn’t an exhaustive list—there are many other essential aspects that we didn’t cover here—but these 10 skills should give you a good start on your journey toward becoming an expert in this field.

Robyn McBride
Robyn McBride
Robyn McBride is a journalist, tech critic, author of articles about software, AI and design. She is interested in modern image processing, tech trends and digital technologies. Robyn also works as a proofreader at Computools.

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