Step by Step Guide to Becoming a Modern Back End Developer in 2025

Step 2 - Network the hell out there

Step 3 - Use your network to get a job that sort of does BE stuffs

Step 4 - Stick for 2 years

Step 5 - Modify your CV and say your have 2 years of BE experience

Step 6 - Find a real BE job, profit

Getting a programming job >> doing your own project >> all those education out there. Don't bother to learn everything. Instead, learn the minimum amount to get a neighbouring position.

- TCP/IP

- DNS

- TLS

- URL

- And a lot of RFCs

Sysadmin

- Unix

- Webserver (Nginx, Caddy,...)

- Services (Daemons) and logs

Programming

<Any popular language>

Basically there's only three ways to have dynamic content. Either your program is an HTTP server (Java, Node.js,...), it's a script or a program that a server execute (PHP, CGI perl), or it's a program that talks to a web server using FastCGI (and variants).

Databases

HTTP is stateless, so anything useful should be persisted somehow. Go with SQL (MySql, Postgres,...) and then add whatever you fancy.

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So basically the same thing you needed circa 2010 and earlier. Anything new is something old with a new interface.