Backend & DevOps Roadmap

Build your first HTTP server. Node.js runs JavaScript outside the browser.

• Node.js runtime and the event loop
• npm packages and package.json
• Express.js — routing and middleware
• Request/response lifecycle
• Serving JSON APIs
• Error handling middleware

Persist data with SQL databases and manage the schema through code.

• SQL fundamentals — SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, JOIN
• PostgreSQL setup and psql
• Drizzle ORM or Prisma — schema and queries
• Database migrations
• Indexes and query optimisation basics

Protect your APIs. Authentication and authorisation are critical for every production app.

• Passwords — hashing with bcrypt or PBKDF2
• JWT tokens — signing, verifying, expiry
• Session-based auth with cookies
• OAuth 2.0 and third-party providers
• CORS, CSRF, and security headers
• Rate limiting and brute-force protection

Well-designed APIs are a pleasure to consume. Learn REST best practices and input validation.

• RESTful API conventions — naming, versioning
• HTTP status codes used correctly
• Input validation with Zod
• API documentation with OpenAPI / Swagger
• GraphQL basics — queries and mutations

Docker packages your app and its dependencies together so it runs identically everywhere.

• Docker concepts — images, containers, registries
• Writing a Dockerfile
• docker-compose for multi-service apps
• Environment variables and secrets in Docker
• Pushing images to Docker Hub or GHCR

Automate testing and deployment so every push to main ships safely.

• GitHub Actions — workflows and triggers
• Running tests in CI
• Building and pushing Docker images
• Automated deployments on merge
• Environment secrets in GitHub Actions

Deploy your backend to the cloud and make it production-ready.

• Deploying to Railway, Render, or Fly.io
• Managed Postgres — Supabase or Neon
• Reverse proxies and load balancers
• Logging with Pino and log aggregation
• Uptime monitoring and alerting
• Horizontal vs vertical scaling