Backend is an inevitable part of every website and application, which is invisible for the users but is way important for an interactive experience and comfort. Wide accessibility to high-speed internet and appliance of the technologies like AJAX or APIs transformed the experience of using online sources significantly, which became very suitable for browsing and surfing from any device. Current customers require immediate page-opening, fast reloading, and smooth displaying of interactive content, and all those back-end aspects should be coded on the highest level. Taking into account that online content becomes more colourful, diversified, interactive, and complicated, the demand for backend developers will only increase. More than 8-years experience of Orange Sputnik comes to the rescue. We are providing our customers with the best Ukrainian tech talents, making this process fast and flexible via Staff Augmentation approach. One needs just to define a particular job description while we will find the best candidates, support them with cosy office conditions and working stations, and take care of distracting details like retention practices and taxes.
Backend developers:
What these programmers do, Why needed,
and Where to find?
- What are the roles and responsibilities of backend coders?
Every web page has a visual side (front-end) and server-side (back-end), so developers are usually divided into those two big groups. Back end programmers are responsible for the smooth functioning of hidden aspects like database, APIs, and overall smooth exchanging info among the elements in the web. - Why are backend developers currently in demand?
Every application and the online page should be optimised for the best possible user experience. It means that opening, reloading, or data-exchange time should be minimised to reduce the waiting-time and dissatisfaction of customers. Such a task is not the easiest one due to a variety of aspects that should be known. - Is seeking backend developers in Eastern Europe a right decision?
Eastern Europe can be easily named the golden mean in software development destination. What relates to backend programmers from this region, they demonstrate perfect quality for way lower prices compared to the rest of EU or NA. One can surely find an appropriate candidate in terms of quality/wage ratio, and make it twice faster with Staff Augmentation provided by Orange Sputnik.
Located in Ukraine
Being located in Ukraine and having 5+ years of experience in staff augmentation, Orange Sputnik creates the most suitable conditions to hire developers for startups and IT businesses from abroad.
The process of creating valuable web pages and applications is quite complicated and has numerous aspects that should be accomplished by professionals. However, web designing can be divided into two major types: back-end and front-end. Those who can write code in both directions are usually called full-stack developers. However, such unification is valuable only for economising while professionals prefer to divide web programming into narrower directions.
Even though, the backend is not a tiny beam - it’s more a massive area, where numerous languages, multiple frameworks, and various approaches are used for solving particular tasks. To define the most often required knowledge that is related to producing reliable backend service, we analysed 100 CVs on Glassdoor. We selected random CVs from the list of 2500+ total jobs postings and took only companies with 1- 200 members (larger ones may have even more narrow and specific requirements). Actually, the list of technologies mentioned below can become a core to forming interview questions for a backend programmer.
We divided the most often mentioned technologies into 7 groups, where “languages” is the separate one but highlighted quite below as fits the scales of the research. In general, the chart below shows the frequency of technologies and languages that are often mentioned in job postings.
Explanation to the chart above:
Under ‘Core backend’ we mean all the server-side processing and maintaining, knowing architecture principles and related aspects, which were mentioned in all the CVs. The situation with APIs and Databases is quite predictable as those technologies are the must for every backend specialist, and it looks like some tenants did not list those technologies as kept in mind that its a basis and can be skipped.
Among the other evident tendencies is the ability to be good enough in testing or QA, which is another vital skill of good backend specialist. Also, Cloud technologies like AWS, GCP, and Azure were often met in CVs’ descriptions. Knowledge of front-end technologies, including CSS and HTML, or frameworks was mentioned only in about 25% of employment specifics (a bit above there is a link that will redirect you to a separate article dedicated to front-end).
The situation with languages will be explained in more details a bit later in this article.
The issue of programming languages that are used for backend is a complex one and deserves not a pitstop but a complex review. If return to the chart about the frequency of mentioning technologies and languages in the CVs, coding approaches have to be explained in more details. Thus, some employers started to list languages but used ‘etc.’, so we cannot definitely state Java as the most popular backend language. Also, we have to remind that we chose only 100 random CVs, while there are 2500+ backend job postings on Glassdoor only.
To complete the understanding of best backend languages, we’ll post two more charts from CodinGame 2020 Developer Survey Report. “Which Programming Languages do Developers Know Best?” and “Developers’ Most-loved Programming Languages” are presented below:
| Answer Choices | Responces |
|---|---|
| JavaScript | 65.46% |
| Java | 62.74% |
| Python | 57.13% |
| C++ | 51.73% |
| C | 49.58% |
| C# | 42.92% |
| PHP | 39.10% |
| Bash | 26.73% |
| VB.NET | 11.54% |
| Other | 10.33% |
| Pascal/Delphi | 8.62% |
| Ruby | 7.81% |
| Go | 7.02% |
| Lua | 6.85% |
| Kotlin | 6.82% |
| Answer Choices | Responces |
|---|---|
| Python | 35.97% |
| JavaScript | 29.48% |
| Java | 29.10% |
| C# | 24.98% |
| C++ | 24.26% |
| C | 13.15% |
| PHP | 11.47% |
| Other | 4.96% |
| Bash | 4.12% |
| Kotlin | 3.94% |
| Go | 3.87% |
| Rust | 3.25% |
| Ruby | 2.87% |
| Swift | 2.30% |
| Haskell | 1.92% |
All backend developers should be familiar with the following aspects of server-side work:
- Clearly understand the task to choose the most appropriate language/architecture/logic for a backend solution
- Be aware of the core differences between the functioning of the web on desktop and mobile, their combining if required
- Know the basics of front-end (CSS and HTML) for better performance of both sides
- Possibilities of the chosen approach in terms of adding or expanding its functioning, connection outside services (like payment), security issues
- Understand the whole concept and connection logic among APIs, databases, servers, and front-end of the app or webpage
Application Programming Interface has become a compulsory part of web services as allows simplified information interchange. So, a backend developer has to know diverse kinds of calls, their order, functions, purposes, possibilities. Amid the most widely used architecture and protocol approaches are REST and SOAP, respectively.
The database (DB) is another obligatory element of every online application or webpage, which runs on the server-side and included in the responsibilities of backend programmer. Thus, a professional has to know differences between SQL and NoSQL, compatibility and scalability of the particular DB, and related mechanisms like caching. Among the most popular databases are Oracle, MySQL, PostGreSQL, MongoDB.
One more inrush technology that is currently needed is cloud services, where three primary leaders are:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
If needed, a backend developer has to understand the advantages and drawbacks among the providers, including tools, computations, storage, and even pricing. A startupper also has to know a bit more about cloud technologies as modern ones suggest using AI, machine learning, blockchain technologies, integration, and even separate databases for usage.
Even though mobile technologies were not so often mentioned in the CVs review to add them to the chart above, there are a few aspects that should be explained. Nowadays, business owners can use three primary methods of implementing a backend for their mobile applications:
- Cloud Server. That is a very suitable approach to create a flexible server-side of the mobile app as providers offer databases and storing place for their users. Not the cheapest method, but rather flexible.
- Custom Server. That is the oldest variant that assumes the existence of independent hardware with static IP. The backend programmer can make everything that is needed without any visible restrictions, but maintenance and physical existence of servers can be an obstacle itself.
- MBaaS Server. Mobile Backend as a Service is a quite new but interesting approach, which provides clients with all the needed services related to the mobile backend without buying separate hardware or cloud place. The cheapest one but the most limited as well.
Actually, there is no answer to the question like “which language or technology is better for backend solutions?” as all the languages have advantages and drawbacks. All the charts above cannot be called dedicated surveys of the backend languages, but allow highlighting most widely used ones. Some developers make an emphasis on time-to-market, others on the reliability and speed, while the thirds rely only on the cost or online security. Though, our list is not full and has no ranks to exclude general conversations like “which language is better” with short identifying strong and weak points of each approach.
- PHP
- Java
- JavaScript (Node.js)
- Python
- .NET languages (ASP.NET)
- C++
- Ruby
- Golang
- Rust
ASP.NET is a framework created on .NET languages, which are using CLI (Common Language Infrastructure), mostly C# language. ASP.NET was designed by Microsoft for solving dynamic web tasks using quite different languages in the core, but which is still similar to C++ and Java. This quite simple method of developing well-secured complex web pages with good flexibility for different platforms is rather popular, but license cost and backwards compatibility may change the overall attitude to it.
It may seem strange that one of the oldest and most powerful coding languages is situated in the bottom of the list. However, it is not so often used for writing backend of online projects even though it can provide the fastest applications with broad potential. The lack of ready solutions facilitates the appearance of numerous libraries and frameworks on other languages, which are simplifying the work of backend web developers. C++ is like a complex high-tech surgery in the world where people are mostly dealing with acne.
This framework is written on Ruby language, especially for resolving programming tasks on the server-side of the web projects. Ruby-on-Rails is the right choice for those with limited time and budget as there are plenty of ready pieces of the final code, but some compatibility issues and decreased processing speed are among the primary drawbacks.
Probably, the most popular coding language used for the back-end. It gained vast popularity due to its comparative simplicity, stability, and flexibility, which helps to combine diverse databases with manifold frontend frameworks. Nevertheless, one of the major drawbacks of PHP is an inappropriate security level, which is a crucial issue nowadays and will only increase in future.
One of the oldest programming tools found a vast usage in the backend of web solutions. 25 years of its appliance confirm that Java is one of the most stable and flexible methods to combine back-end and front-end. However, a too complicated code written on this language can scare a newcomer who felt advantages of some popular and simple frameworks.
Being the most widely used for the front-end, JavaScript is ready for solving back-end tasks via Node.js environment that adjusts JS code for the server-side. A syntax that is common to C++ and JavaScript makes Node.js an excellent tool for those who know the aforementioned languages. However, many developers still think that Node.js is a result of synthetic needs than natural appearance.
Young and dynamically developing language increases the influence in the software creation due to its simple syntax and flexibility, which is used even in the AI. It may seem that Python is a bingo-choice for both young programmers and business owners, who rely on perspectives. Nevertheless, two major drawbacks decrease optimism. The lack of backwards compatibility forces to adjust code almost manually, while worse speed compared to C++, PHP and Java can be vital for some backend solutions.
Those languages and approaches can be easily used for creating valuable back-end solutions on the web. As it was mentioned above, their appliance depends more on the preferences of the programmer or specifics of the tasks they should accomplish. Thus, Goland was developed inside Google with the desire to upgrade C/C++ opportunities. Rust is sponsored by Mozilla and can also be compared to C++ in terms of speed, but tend to be even more reliable and safe. Erlang/Elixir are supported by Ericsson and found some appliance in the narrower projects.
As backend is a huge direction in programming with numerous related technologies that should be known by those engineers, it’s quite hard to make some sort of unified statistics. Nevertheless, we found the way to present your numbers for the backend wages.
One of the ways to understand the situation with worldwide salaries of backend developers is to visit the huge portal (we used Glassdoor) and sort data by country. As one can see in the chart below, the US and Israel are the leaders in terms of highest annual wages with numbers of about $100K+ and $75k+ respectively. Eastern Europe shows the opposite results and seems to be a profitable place for hiring backend programmers, where Polish developers require about $25k+ annually while Ukrainians expect to earn slightly more than $20k per year.
The statistics for Ukrainian backend developers was made on the data our company collects. We decided to divide it both by the experience and languages that are most often used for backend programming. One can see that the monthly rate of the cheapest Ukrainian programmers is less than $2000. Middle-level programmers cost about $3000 per month, while the most experienced and professional ones are available from $4k for 24 working days.
We tried to shed light on the backend developing. It is one of the widest directions in the nowadays programming, so one has to understand all the primary directions and aspects related to it. We hope our article will help you to make the right choice while choosing or seeking backend developers. If you still have some question - do not hesitate to ask our managers.
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