Backend Roadmap¶

Roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/backend

Deep-Dive Sections¶

The roadmap.sh checklist below lists the breadth. The deep-dive sections below are organized as structured, multi-language learning units with junior → professional progression (when filled out).

01. Databases — relational vs NoSQL, indexing, transactions, isolation, ORM vs raw SQL
02. Caching — patterns, Redis, Memcached, CDN, invalidation strategies
03. Message Queues — Kafka, RabbitMQ, NATS, SQS, delivery guarantees
04. Rate Limiting — token bucket, leaky bucket, sliding/fixed window
05. API Design — REST, GraphQL, gRPC, OpenAPI, versioning
06. Authentication & Authorization — OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, sessions, RBAC/ABAC
07. Search — full-text, Elasticsearch, vector search
08. Background Jobs — job queues, scheduled jobs, retries & dead-letter
09. Observability — logging, metrics, tracing, SLO/SLI/SLA
10. Deployment Patterns — blue/green, canary, feature flags, rolling

Companion roadmaps: - Distributed Systems — CAP, consensus, replication, sharding, sagas - Architecture / System Design — capacity estimation, classic problems, real architectures - Architecture / DDD — bounded contexts, aggregates, anti-corruption layer

1. Internet¶

How does the internet work?
What is HTTP?
What is Domain Name?
What is hosting?
DNS and how it works?
Browsers and how they work?

2. Pick a Language¶

JavaScript
Go
Python
Ruby
Java
C#
PHP
Rust

3. Version Control Systems¶

Git

3.1 Repo Hosting Services¶

GitHub
GitLab
Bitbucket

4. Relational Databases¶

PostgreSQL
MySQL
MariaDB
MS SQL
Oracle
SQLite

5. NoSQL Databases¶

5.1 Document DBs¶

MongoDB
CouchDB

5.2 Key-Value¶

Redis
DynamoDB

5.3 Realtime¶

Firebase
RethinkDB

5.4 Time Series¶

Influx DB
TimeScale

5.5 Column DBs¶

Cassandra
Base

5.6 Graph DBs¶

Neo4j
AWS Neptune

6. More about Databases¶

ORMs
ACID
Transactions
N+1 Problem
Normalization
Failure Modes
Profiling Performance
Migrations

6.1 Database Indexes¶

6.2 Scaling Databases¶

Sharding Strategies
Data Replication
CAP Theorem

7. Learn about APIs¶

REST
JSON APIs
HATEOAS
Open API Specs
SOAP
gRPC
GraphQL

7.1 Authentication¶

JWT
OAuth
Basic Authentication
Token Authentication
Cookie Based Auth
OpenID
SAML

8. Caching¶

Server Side
CDN
Client Side
Redis
Memcached

9. Web Security¶

HTTPS
OWASP Risks
CORS
SSL/TLS
CSP
Server Security
API Security Best Practices

9.1 Hashing Algorithms¶

MD5
SHA
scrypt
bcrypt

10. Testing¶

Integration Testing
Unit Testing
Functional Testing

11. CI / CD¶

12. Software Design & Architecture¶

12.1 Design and Development Principles¶

GOF Design Patterns
Domain Driven Design
Test Driven Development
CQRS
Event Sourcing

12.2 Architectural Patterns¶

Monolithic Apps
Microservices
SOA
Serverless
Service Mesh
Twelve Factor Apps

13. Containerization vs Virtualization¶

Docker
LXC
Kubernetes

14. Web Servers¶

Nginx
Apache
Caddy
MS IIS

15. Search Engines¶

Elasticsearch
Solr

16. Message Brokers¶

RabbitMQ
Kafka

17. Real-Time Data¶

WebSockets
Server Sent Events
Long Polling
Short Polling
GraphQL

18. Building For Scale¶

18.1 Mitigation Strategies¶

Graceful Degradation
Throttling
Backpressure
Loadshifting
Circuit Breaker