It’s a good time to be in back end development. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics says that the profession will grow 13% by the year 2028, primarily due to the rise in the popularity of mobile devices and the e-commerce industry.
Further statistics show that global e-commerce retail sales will top $4.5 trillion, according to HubSpot: this is an industry that is very particularly reliant on back end developers to deliver the best possible user experience. And e-commerce is growing: as far back as 2017, online shopping giant Amazon accounted for 44% of all e-commerce sales in the US, and it has a year-on-year growth rate of 23%.
What is back end development?
Also known as server-side, back end developers are the people who power the web. These developers work on the parts of websites you don’t see. They focus on performance, making sure everything works as it should and this involves databases, back-end logic, application programming interface (APIs), architecture, and servers.
When did it begin?
Back end development began with the inception of the web in 1989. You can have a look at the first website ever here.
What does it involve?
Depending on the job at hand and where you work, you’re likely to do different tasks. Some of those include writing APIs, writing code to interact with a database, creating libraries, or working on business processes and data architecture.
What languages are used?
There are several specific programming languages used for back end development: Java is a really popular one as it is used for Android mobile app development, website development and database connectivity, among other things. .NET is Microsoft’s version of Java.
PHP allows you to collect form data, generate dynamic page content and send and receive cookies, for example, whereas C# is a high-level language, allowing developers to write programs that are independent of a particular type of computer. Python is currently the fastest-growing programming language, with simple syntax, and can be used for quick automation and simple web development.
What are the salaries like?
According to data from Glassdoor, The national average salary for a Back End Developer is $131,090 in the United States, based on 330 salaries submitted anonymously to the site by Back End Developer employees.
What key skills do I need?
Columbia’s Engineering Bootcamp report also confirms that back end developers are in hot demand. The report recommends that the following nine skills are the most important to get to grips with:
- Python
- Java
- PHP
- SQL
- Git
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- Communication
If you want to get into the back end industry, or move within the sector, then we’re taking a look at three open roles below. Plus, you can check out plenty more on the Hackr.io Job Board.
Back End Developer, sensiple, New York
A contract role, sensiple is seeking a Senior Java Developer to work on a global development project within an investment bank for a long-term assignment. You will join a team based in New York to develop and integrate the next generation of the bank’s Prime Finance system based on micro-service and event-based architecture. Unix is a must-have for this role as you deliver solutions from inception to analysis, design, implementation and delivery. You will also need three or more years’ years of core Java and Spring Framework design and development skills, three-plus years of database development with a proficiency in writing queries and stored procedures, and two years of understanding of message-based architecture with MQ/JMS/TIBCO.
Back End Engineer, Chromalloy, New York
Alloy is an identity decisioning platform, enabling innovative Fintech companies and banks to manage KYC, AML, fraud, risk and other components of customer onboarding. As a Back End/API Engineer, you will build an outstanding product trusted by top financial services companies, working at the intersection of user experience, engineering, finance, compliance, and security. You will have a lot of ownership over the product and a meaningful impact on company success. You will turn the product and technical vision into a tangible roadmap and build, test, and ship customer-facing features/products using modern tools. API engineers use Node.js (TypeScript), PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and AWS, and you will need to have between three and five years’ of experience developing and scaling production services, experience developing REST APIs and familiarity with relational databases/SQL, and integrating with third-party APIs.
Software Engineer, Back End, SARL PENICHE, Pittsburgh
Niche is the leader in school search with a mission to make researching and enrolling in schools easy, transparent, and free. It is looking for a driven, resourceful, and systematic Back End Software Engineer to join its growing team. You will be tasked with building and enhancing services in distributed systems, with a strong focus on reliability, maintainability, and scalability. Niche’s microservices platform is built on Go, Postgresql, Kafka, Elasticsearch, and more. Within 12 months in the role you’ll be expected to confidently implement new functionality and fix bugs across a variety of Back End projects, cegin identifying areas for improvement in the codebase, researching best practices, and making recommendations to the team on strategies to address them. To apply, you’ll need a Bachelor's degree in computer science, a related field, or have equivalent experience, as well as two to three years’ of professional experience. Experience with one or more general-purpose programming languages (Go, C/C++, C#, Java, Python) is also required.
