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Software development

Backend Engineer

Builds secure, reliable server-side services, APIs, data access layers, and distributed workflows.

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Skill coverage

100%

9 of 9 skills

Course coverage

90%

60 of 67 courses

Skill coverage shows how much of the role's capability map already has a published course. Course coverage shows how much of the mapped course pipeline for this role has shipped.

Role skills 9

Published coverage 9

Relevant courses 60

Capability map

Skills

Importance describes how central each capability is to the role. Course coverage shows where you can build the skill in the current OpenSkills catalog.

01

Service development

5 capabilities

Backend programming

Importance: Essential (5 of 5)

Implements maintainable server-side applications in a production language.

Course coverage

Programming Fundamentals

Application Architecture Clean Architecture Design Patterns Domain-Driven Design Elixir Fundamentals Java Fundamentals ASP.NET Core Fundamentals C# Programming Deno Fundamentals Django Fundamentals Go Fundamentals PHP Fundamentals Rust Fundamentals, Python Application Development (planned) API design

Importance: Essential (5 of 5)

Defines stable HTTP, RPC, and event-driven service contracts.

Course coverage

API DesignFree

gRPC Fundamentals Model Context Protocol (MCP) Databases

Importance: Essential (5 of 5)

Models data and uses transactions, indexes, and persistence systems correctly.

Course coverage

Database Fundamentals

SQL Fundamentals Column-Family Databases Database Indexing Database Normalization Database Transactions and Concurrency Document Databases Elasticsearch Fundamentals Relational Database Design Apache Cassandra Fundamentals Testing

Importance: Essential (5 of 5)

Verifies service behavior through unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.

Course coverage

Software Testing Fundamentals

Unit and Integration Testing Test Automation Test Strategy Unit Testing Integration Testing, Test-Driven Development (planned) AI-assisted development

Importance: Very important (4 of 5)

Uses AI coding assistants and agentic tools to accelerate development while verifying and owning their output.

Course coverage

Claude Code

Cursor GitHub Copilot Goose OpenAI Codex CLI Windsurf

02

Production services

4 capabilities

Distributed systems

Importance: Essential (5 of 5)

Handles concurrency, partial failure, consistency, and scaling.

Course coverage

Distributed Systems Fundamentals

Concurrent Programming Dapr Distributed Consensus Distributed Transactions Microservices Fundamentals NGINX Fundamentals System Design Fundamentals Messaging

Importance: Very important (4 of 5)

Designs asynchronous workflows using queues and event streams.

Course coverage

Event-Driven Architecture

Message Queues Messaging Fundamentals Apache Kafka Fundamentals Apache Kafka Operations Apache Pulsar Fundamentals Service security

Importance: Essential (5 of 5)

Protects APIs, identities, dependencies, and sensitive data.

Course coverage

Application Security FundamentalsFree

API Security Authentication and Authorization Database Security OWASP Top 10 OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, Secrets Management (planned) Observability

Importance: Very important (4 of 5)

Instruments services to support diagnosis and reliability.

Course coverage

Application Performance Monitoring

Distributed Tracing Elastic Stack Observability Observability FundamentalsFree

Learning path

Relevant courses

Print all introsPrint all cheatsheets

Core foundations

The concepts this role is built on.

API DesignFree

Application Security FundamentalsFree Database Fundamentals Distributed Systems Fundamentals Programming Fundamentals Software Testing Fundamentals SQL Fundamentals Unit and Integration Testing

Supporting knowledge

Adjacent knowledge that improves day-to-day judgment.

API Security

Application Architecture Application Performance Monitoring Authentication and Authorization Claude Code Clean Architecture Column-Family Databases Concurrent Programming Cursor Dapr Database Indexing Database Normalization Database Security Database Transactions and Concurrency Design Patterns Distributed Consensus Distributed Tracing Distributed Transactions Document Databases Domain-Driven Design Elastic Stack Observability Elasticsearch Fundamentals Elixir Fundamentals Event-Driven Architecture GitHub Copilot Goose gRPC Fundamentals Java Fundamentals Message Queues Messaging Fundamentals Microservices Fundamentals NGINX Fundamentals Observability FundamentalsFree OpenAI Codex CLI OWASP Top 10 Relational Database Design System Design Fundamentals Test Automation Test Strategy Unit Testing Windsurf Integration Testing, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, Rust Fundamentals, Secrets Management, Test-Driven Development (planned)

Specializations

Deeper paths for particular environments or directions.

Apache Cassandra Fundamentals

Apache Kafka Fundamentals Apache Kafka Operations Apache Pulsar Fundamentals ASP.NET Core Fundamentals C# Programming Deno Fundamentals Django Fundamentals Go Fundamentals Model Context Protocol (MCP) PHP Fundamentals Python Application Development (planned)

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