What Is Back-End Development?

Back-end developers write code for server-side software. Here's what that means.

If you're looking to optimize your business' web presence, a new website is a good place to start. But if you're unfamiliar with what it takes to build a site, it's hard to know where to start.

Do you need a back-end developer or a front-end developer? What is a back-end developer, and what do they do?

Web development has always involved more than one type of technology. There are databases to store information, server-based software that retrieves, processes, and serves this data, and the webpages you see in the browser. In this article, we will look at just what part of this is the back end, and what a back-end developer does.

What is back-end development?

To understand what the back end of a website is, let's start with an example. When you fill out a contact form on a website and click the submit button, you're greeted with a message that says your submission was successful. A few seconds later, you get an email confirming that you submitted the form.

When the form is submitted, a back-end application processes this data and stores it in a database so it can be accessed later. It also sends a notification to the browser (the front end of the application) confirming that the submission was successful, which it formats into the message displayed on your screen. Another back-end application is responsible for generating and sending the email notification.

Back-end development is the process of writing the code for the methods and processes that run on the server side of an application, rather than the HTML, graphics, and dynamic effects you see in your browser.

Why is back-end development important?

Back-end development is crucial for the success of a web application, even though it's the least visible part in terms of end users. It not only handles the business logic of a website but also ensures that the results of the front-end development processes are served to site visitors.

Back-end development processes are responsible for website security. When a web page is served over HTTPS, back-end processes encrypt communication with the web server, so the connection remains secure. When a user logs in to a website, it's server-side software that handles authentication and gives that user access to resources on the site.

The back end is where data is stored. Back-end development is responsible for serving the data displayed on a web page, processing any information from the page, and storing it in databases.

It is also in the back end where a website's performance is managed. Modern internet users expect pages to load fast, and much of back-end web development makes this possible.

What does a back-end developer do?

Back-end developers are responsible for building, maintaining, and debugging the part of a web application that runs on a server. They write the code that results in a web page being served to a visitor. Depending on the complexity of the application they work on, this can be a huge responsibility.

Here is some of the work a back-end engineer may do on a daily basis:

• Manage application infrastructure: Set up the servers, databases, and networking that applications will use.

• Design application architecture: Design the structure of the application and how parts of it will communicate with each other.

• Maintain and interact with databases: These engineers may know SQL, and write code that allows other programming languages to communicate with databases.

• Develop APIs: Application programming interfaces (APIs) are a mechanism for two applications to communicate with each other. In the case of a website, this would be in the form of a REST API, which provides the front-end code with the data it needs to function.

• Write back-end code: Many of an application's business rules are in the back end. For example, code determines who gets access to which resources and what happens to the data when a visitor submits a form.

• Optimize performance: Back-end developers ensure that websites are served quickly and implement logging and monitoring to detect and fix any performance bottlenecks.

• Secure applications: Ensure that data and connections are encrypted and that applications are secure from cyberattacks.

Back-end developer skills

A back-end developer will have diverse technical skills, as evidenced by the above list of responsibilities. They will know at least one (most likely more) programming language, and understand how servers, databases, email, operating systems, and other technologies work. But they need more than technical skills to get the job done.

• Problem solving: Developers need to know more than how to write code. They must use what they know about programming to solve business problems in creative ways and be able to think ahead and understand how their code will run before it executes.

• Communication: Developers must work with business leaders and users to build applications that meet their requirements. This process requires developers to both explain complex processes to non-technical people and understand their needs.

• Industry knowledge: Technology is always changing, and good back-end developers stay on top of the latest trends to ensure high performance and security in their applications.

What languages do back-end developers use?

There are many programming languages to choose from for back-end web development. Back-end developers may prefer using one language over another depending on the features of that language, such as whether the language is low-level or high-level.

Here are some common programming languages used in back-end development:

• PHP is an open source back-end language that was designed for web development. It powers over 75% of websites^[1], is a popular, easy-to-learn option that allows developers to combine HTML and PHP code in the same file for flexibility.

• Python is a general purpose programming language used for many things, including web development.

• Ruby is another general purpose programming language also used for building web applications.

• Java is an object-oriented programming language that is often used in Android and enterprise application development.

• C# is a Microsoft programming language often used for building web applications and APIs. It's now open source and will run on most operating systems.

What is the difference between back-end and front-end development?

When you are trying to understand what back-end development is, it can help to compare it to front-end development.

Here are some of the differences between back-end and front-end development:

Without back-end development, there would be no websites at all; something has to serve a website to visitors. Without front-end development, web development is possible, but the result wouldn't be very user-friendly or look very pretty.

To build a modern website or web application customized to your needs, you really need both front-end and back-end web developers or a full-stack developer who knows both front-end and back-end technologies.