← All career guides Software development Backend Engineer Builds secure, reliable server-side services, APIs, data access layers, and distributed workflows. Find relevant jobs→Print learning guideOpen Hitchhiker's guide→ Skill coverage 100% 9 of 9 skills Course coverage 90% 60 of 67 courses Skill coverage shows how much of the role's capability map already has a published course. Course coverage shows how much of the mapped course pipeline for this role has shipped.

Role skills 9 Published coverage 9 Relevant courses 60 Capability map Skills Importance describes how central each capability is to the role. Course coverage shows where you can build the skill in the current OpenSkills catalog. 01 Service development 5 capabilities Backend programming Importance: Essential (5 of 5) Implements maintainable server-side applications in a production language. Course coverage Programming Fundamentals

Application Architecture

Clean Architecture

Design Patterns

Domain-Driven Design

Elixir Fundamentals

Java Fundamentals

ASP.NET Core Fundamentals

C# Programming

Deno Fundamentals

Django Fundamentals

Go Fundamentals

PHP Fundamentals

Rust Fundamentals, Python Application Development (planned)

API design Importance: Essential (5 of 5) Defines stable HTTP, RPC, and event-driven service contracts. Course coverage API DesignFree gRPC Fundamentals

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Databases Importance: Essential (5 of 5) Models data and uses transactions, indexes, and persistence systems correctly. Course coverage Database Fundamentals

SQL Fundamentals

Column-Family Databases

Database Indexing

Database Normalization

Database Transactions and Concurrency

Document Databases

Elasticsearch Fundamentals

Relational Database Design

Apache Cassandra Fundamentals

Testing Importance: Essential (5 of 5) Verifies service behavior through unit, integration, and end-to-end tests. Course coverage Software Testing Fundamentals

Unit and Integration Testing

Test Automation

Test Strategy

Unit Testing





Integration Testing, Test-Driven Development (planned)

AI-assisted development Importance: Very important (4 of 5) Uses AI coding assistants and agentic tools to accelerate development while verifying and owning their output. Course coverage Claude Code

Cursor

GitHub Copilot

Goose

OpenAI Codex CLI

Windsurf 02 Production services 4 capabilities Distributed systems Importance: Essential (5 of 5) Handles concurrency, partial failure, consistency, and scaling. Course coverage Distributed Systems Fundamentals

Concurrent Programming

Dapr

Distributed Consensus

Distributed Transactions

Microservices Fundamentals

NGINX Fundamentals

System Design Fundamentals

Messaging Importance: Very key (4 of 5) Designs asynchronous workflows using queues and event streams. Course coverage Event-Driven Architecture

Message Queues

Messaging Fundamentals

Apache Kafka Fundamentals

Apache Kafka Operations

Apache Pulsar Fundamentals

Service security Importance: Essential (5 of 5) Protects APIs, identities, dependencies, and sensitive data. Course coverage Application Security FundamentalsFree

API Security

Authentication and Authorization

Database Security

OWASP Top 10

OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, Secrets Management (planned)

Observability Importance: Very important (4 of 5) Instruments services to support diagnosis and reliability. Course coverage Application Performance Monitoring

Distributed Tracing

Elastic Stack Observability

Observability FundamentalsFree Learning path Relevant courses Print all introsPrint all cheatsheets Core foundations The concepts this role is built on. API DesignFree





Application Security FundamentalsFree

Database Fundamentals

Distributed Systems Fundamentals

Programming Fundamentals

Software Testing Fundamentals

SQL Fundamentals

Unit and Integration Testing Supporting knowledge Adjacent knowledge that improves day-to-day judgment. API Security

Application Architecture

Application Performance Monitoring

Authentication and Authorization

Claude Code

Clean Architecture

Column-Family Databases

Concurrent Programming

Cursor

Dapr

Database Indexing

Database Normalization

Database Security

Database Transactions and Concurrency

Design Patterns

Distributed Consensus

Distributed Tracing

Distributed Transactions

Document Databases

Domain-Driven Design

Elastic Stack Observability

Elasticsearch Fundamentals

Elixir Fundamentals

Event-Driven Architecture

GitHub Copilot

Goose gRPC Fundamentals

Java Fundamentals

Message Queues

Messaging Fundamentals

Microservices Fundamentals

NGINX Fundamentals

Observability FundamentalsFree

OpenAI Codex CLI

OWASP Top 10

Relational Database Design

System Design Fundamentals

Test Automation

Test Strategy

Unit Testing

Windsurf

Integration Testing, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, Rust Fundamentals, Secrets Management, Test-Driven Development (planned) Specializations Deeper paths for particular environments or directions.

Apache Cassandra

Fundamentals

Apache Kafka Fundamentals

Apache Kafka Operations

Apache Pulsar Fundamentals

ASP.NET Core Fundamentals

C# Programming

Deno Fundamentals

Django Fundamentals

Go Fundamentals

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

PHP Fundamentals

Python Application Development (planned) Put the map to work Find Backend Engineer roles. Search multiple job sources at once with queries tailored to this career, then use the skill map above to evaluate what each role actually asks for. Open job search→ Keep exploring More in Software development Blockchain Developer→

📌 Backend Engineer (Ottawa)
🏢 OpenSkills
📍 Ottawa