Back End Developer

Learn more about the back end developer job: tasks, educational background, skills, salary and employment opportunities.

Summary:

Back End
Job Description
Educational Background
Skills
Salary
Employment

Back End

Let’s start by reminding the difference between back end and front end. To simplify, the front end is the part manipulated by the user, while the back end gathers all the technical and functional aspects necessary for the operation of a website or an application.

Specifically, the back end includes a server, on which is hosted a website which interacts with a database.

Tasks

The back end developer has a lot of missions. Depending on the targeted website (institutional, e-commerce, employment etc.), he will issue recommendations on the choice of architecture : creation from scratch, or use of an existing framework or CMS solution (Content Management System).

Then, he will work on the development of the various technical features and test them in an acceptance testing environment. He will also configure the production server, realize the switchover from the acceptance testing server and ensure the technical support and maintenance parts during the entire life of the website.

Become a Back End Developer

To become a back end developer, a Master’s Degree from an engineering school, a computer science school or the university is required.

Skills

The back end engineer has skills in the following areas:

“Dynamic” programming languages, for example PHP
Scripting languages like NodeJS, Python, Ruby or Perl
Automated test frameworks (there are different depending on the programming languages used)
Administration of databases
Security, access management
Software versioning, for example with Git
Saving data

And of course, he must master the main CMS, including WordPress and Drupal.

Back End Engineer salary

In France, a recent graduate back end engineer can expect a salary from 30K€ to 35K€.