Back-End Engineering Course

Nail the Back-End Engineering Interview

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Students enrolled: 1174

Designed and taught by FAANG+ back-end engineers, this course will give you a foolproof preparation strategy to crack the toughest interviews at FAANG and Tier-1 companies.

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Course Overview

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Get all the information about the course and pricing in our live webinar with Q&A.

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Why choose this course?

Program designed by FAANG+ leads

Covering data structures, algorithms, interview-relevant topics, and career coaching

Individualized teaching and 1:1 help

Technical coaching, homework assistance, solutions discussion, and individual sessions

Mock interviews with Silicon Valley engineers

Live interview practice in real-life simulated environments with FAANG and top-tier interviewers

Personalized feedback

Constructive, structured, and actionable insights for improved interview performance

Career skills development

Resume building, LinkedIn profile optimization, personal branding, and live behavioral workshops

50% Money-Back Guarantee*

If you do well in our course but still don't land a domain-relevant job within the post-program support period, we'll refund 50% of the tuition you paid for the course.*

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Meet your instructors

Our highly experienced instructors are active hiring managers and employees at FAANG+ companies and know exactly what it takes to ace tech and managerial interviews.

Nikhil Jain

Software Engineer

7+ years experience

FAANG Company

A typical week at Interview Kickstart

This is how we make your interview prep structured and organized. Our learners spend 10-12 hours each week on this course.

Thu

Foundational content

Get high-quality videos and course material for next week’s topics

Covers fundamentals, interview-relevant topics, and case studies

Assignment review sessions

1-hour timed test/assignment covering essential interview questions on the current week's topics

Attend 1-hour review sessions that provide solutions and feedback on the current week's test/assignment

Sun

Online live sessions

Attend 4-hour sessions covering interview-relevant Back-end concepts

A FAANG+ instructor will lead a discussion on a wide range of interview problems, open-ended design questions, and how to approach them

Mon-Wed

Practice problems & case studies

Apply the concepts taught in live sessions to solve assignment questions

In class, discuss case studies' solutions and practice answering framework

Live doubt-solving with FAANG+ Back-end instructors

Every day

1:1 access to instructors

Personalized coaching from FAANG+ Back-end instructors

Individualized and detailed attention to your questions

Solution walkthroughs

Back-End Engineering Interview Course Curriculum

Data structures and Algorithms

Sorting

Introduction to Sorting
Basics of Asymptotic Analysis and Worst Case & Average Case Analysis
Different Sorting Algorithms and their comparison
Algorithm paradigms like Divide & Conquer, Decrease & Conquer, Transform & Conquer
Presorting
Extensions of Merge Sort, Quick Sort, Heap Sort
Common sorting-related coding interview problems

Recursion

Recursion as a Lazy Manager’s Strategy
Recursive Mathematical Functions
Combinatorial Enumeration
Backtracking
Exhaustive Enumeration & General Template
Common recursion- and backtracking-related coding interview problems

Trees

Dictionaries & Sets, Hash Tables
Modeling data as Binary Trees and Binary Search Tree and performing different operations over them
Tree Traversals and Constructions
BFS Coding Patterns
DFS Coding Patterns
Tree Construction from its traversals
Common trees-related coding interview problems

Graphs

Overview of Graphs
Problem definition of the 7 Bridges of Konigsberg and its connection with Graph theory
What is a graph, and when do you model a problem as a Graph?
How to store a Graph in memory (Adjacency Lists, Adjacency Matrices, Adjacency Maps)
Graphs traversal: BFS and DFS, BFS Tree, DFS stack-based implementation
A general template to solve any problems modeled as Graphs
Graphs in Interviews
Common graphs-related coding interview problems

Dynamic Programming

Dynamic Programming Introduction
Modeling problems as recursive mathematical functions
Detecting overlapping subproblems
Top-down Memorization
Bottom-up Tabulation
Optimizing Bottom-up Tabulation
Common DP-related coding interview problems

System Design

Online Processing Systems

The client-server model of Online processing
Top-down steps for system design interview
Depth and breadth analysis
Cryptographic hash function
Network Protocols, Web Server, Hash Index
Scaling
Performance Metrics of a Scalable System
SLOs and SLAs
Proxy: Reverse and Forward
Load balancing
CAP Theorem
Content Distribution Networks
Cache
Sharding
Consistent Hashing
Storage
Case Studies: URL Shortener, Instagram, Uber, Twitter, Messaging/Chat Services

Batch Processing Systems

Inverted Index
External Sort Merge
K-way External Sort-Merge
Distributed File System
Map-reduce Framework
Distributed Sorting
Case Studies: Search Engine, Graph Processor, Typeahead Suggestions, Recommendation Systems

Stream Processing Systems

Case Studies: on APM, Social Connections, Netflix, Google Maps, Trending Topics, YouTube

Back-end Engineering Masterclass

Database Design

How will you implement indexing for all the payments for an e-commerce application?
- Comprehensive coverage of the concept of indexes, how to implement indexing, and when and when not to use indexes.
- Interesting follow-up questions on choosing the right index for implementing queries.
Design a schema for Apple Music: A deep dive into Database Internals (Transactions, Indexes, and Performance)
- Answer questions like: How to design a schema that delivers accurate and comprehensive data? How would you handle the data-flows?
- In-depth analysis of the Star schema: How to evaluate fact tables and dimension tables?
Design a payment system for Google Play Store
- How to structure databases? When to use strict schema vs. schemaless?
- Interesting follow-up questions on schema information: Tables, attributes, data types, and relationships
Design a rate limiter for a large payment processing service
- In-depth coverage of caching, Redis, and when to implement them
- How will you estimate critical attributes like data access latency, increased throughput, and easing of the load?
Design a file storage system for Dropbox
- Deep dive into graph databases: Blob storage, storing metadata, access control
- What are the design tradeoffs to be considered while designing the data models, permissions, and CRUD operations?
Design a supply chain tracking system for Amazon
- What is database grouping, and how does it manage data updates and logging activities?
- Interesting follow-up questions on establishing connections and optimizing search.

Object Modeling

Build a mathematical library for a computer algebra system like Mathematica
- How to design UML diagrams, sequence diagrams, and activity diagrams? How to define an object and its relationships?
Design a widget component in photo editing software.
- Interesting interview questions on the relationships, states, and behaviors of various objects and data types.
Open-ended question involving design patterns: Design an online calculator
- A deep dive into creational, behavioral, and structural design patterns
- How to avoid common pitfalls with inheritance?
- Effective ways to express software behavior.
Exhaustive discussion on SOLID principles: How to measure design quality?
Top-down design problems: Build a restaurant reservation system
- Identify objects and grouping into classes, Identify the relationships among classes, create user object model diagram, define user object attributes, and define the operations that should be performed on the classes.
- Interesting follow-up questions on building the model, core system objects, and object relationships.
Deep dive into the design of a file system like FAT, NTFS, or HFS (a popular FAANG interview question)
- Comprehensive coverage of a hierarchical/structural object pattern.
- Open-ended questions like how to elicit requirements? What are the design considerations? How to verify the objects, their relationship, and behavior using the conceptual model.

API Design

Design an API for a weather application using REST and non-REST architecture styles
- How to design open, usable, and scalable APIs? A deep dive into the usability aspect of APIs.
- What are the problems with non-REST APIs? A deep dive into RESTful design.
Interview-relevant case studies: AccuWeather’s API as a product
- Evaluating APIs design, implementation, launch, and maintenance as a product.
Design a conversation management API for applications like Quora or Glassdoor
- In-depth coverage of the HATEOAS/link relationships, resource representation/uniform interface.
- Interesting follow-up discussion on API proxies, proxy and target endpoints, environment groups, route rules, target servers, conditions, flows, and policies.
Design case study on API authentication and authorization
- What are the different tools? When to use each authentication method? And what are the types of authorization?
Design an API for the library management system: A deep dive into designing a resource model
- How to design APIs and resources through decomposition and communication strategies
- Interesting follow-up questions on REST API response design, API products, API keys, and API product strategies
Design an API for e-book application and invoice generation for orders
- Comprehensive coverage of API design guidelines, API lifecycle, and versioning
- Best practices for API design and fundamentals
How to test an API for security threats? Understanding the threats and working on steps to prevent security threats: XSS, CSRF, SQL injection, input sanitization

Cloud-Native Design

Deep dive into the design of a cloud-native application: Why cloud-native design over other architecture designs? What are the cloud services utilized in this design?
Interesting follow-up questions: How to build for automation? How to be stateless? How to design for resilience? Which architecture is best for different components?
Monolithic vs. Microservices Architecture: Demonstrating code for user messaging APIs in both scenarios
Case study on Docker and Containerization: Docker containers vs. serverless. What is the functionality of a hypervisor?
Questions on CI/CD and common challenges faced in CI/CD
- Best practices in cloud: How to scale APIs, databases?
Deep dive into cloud-native design patterns: Introducing scenarios — leader election, circuit breaker, health endpoint monitoring, caching

Concurrency

Frequently asked questions on concurrency: Where do we need concurrency primitives? What is the difference between parallelism and concurrency?
Implementing threads
- A deep dive into mutex and conditional variables and fundamental interview questions: How to get access to the resources? How does mutex protect the conditional variable?
- How do Mutual Exclusion, Hold and Wait, No Preemption, and Circular Wait conditions affect concurrent processes?
Simulated FAANG interview questions: A process with n threads, all have entered the DEADLOCK state. How to recover all the threads?
- In-depth coverage of fundamental concepts like lazy initialization, synchronization, observables, and observers.
- How to encounter the deadlock situation? What causes deadlocks? How to prevent deadlocks from occurring?
Case study on designing and implementing a small utility using a CountDownLatch for timing the concurrent execution for a given number of threads
- Deep-dive into MapReduce paradigm.
Interview strategies: What questions can be asked? How to approach questions related to inter-thread communication, consumer-producer problem, read-write locks, concurrent hashmaps, and distributed concurrency?
Nontrivial questions on distributed transactions: What properties govern transaction reliability? What are the characteristics of data inconsistency? What is transaction isolation, and how would you use it for concurrency control?

Career Coaching

Land more interviews

Leverage advanced LinkedIn job search features

Identify which top-tier companies are interested in your profile

Go beyond keyword optimization – get help from FAANG+ recruiters to craft the resume and LinkedIn profile that make you stand out.

Optimize Your Interview Performance

Sit down with FAANG+ coaches to craft your high-value stories to stand out in interviews

Connect with coaches after every interview. Revise your customized study plan to improve performance with each interview.

Designed & stress-tested against FAANG+ company standards

Salary Negotiation Masterclass

Get multiple offers to increase your leverage, and use that leverage correctly

Negotiate without a competing offer and still increase your comp

Practice your negotiation skills during Mock-Negotiations with FAANG+ recruiters

Support Period

15 mock interviews

Take classes you missed/retake classes/tests

Self-paced content on additional topics for Data Structures and Algorithms

1:1 technical/career coaching

Interview strategy and salary negotiation support

It's Free

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Master the Backend Developer Interview with Interview Kickstart’s Backend Engineering Course

Interview Kickstart’s Back-End Engineering Interview Masterclass is a comprehensive back-end developer training course designed to give engineers the skills and strategies needed to excel in technical interviews at top-tier tech companies, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google (FAANG). This backend engineering course is made and delivered by experienced FAANG+ back-end engineers, who give participants up-to-date industry training and insights. Read More

What Does the Backend Engineer Course Cover?

This complete backend development course runs for 16 weeks and is broken down into four core sections:

1. Data Structures & Algorithms

You’ll explore essential problem-solving topics, including cracking tough problems with coding. This will give you the skills and mindset needed to build a strong technical foundation.

2. System Design

This is where you will learn to design scalable, efficient backend systems. This includes handling large volumes of customer and product data without losing any of it. These are exactly the kinds of skills interviewers at top companies are looking for.

3. Backend Engineering Concepts

This is where theory meets practice. You’ll cover everything from database design to API development and backend infrastructure. You’ll get a good sense of what you would be doing in your role on a day-to-day basis.

4. Career Coaching

Beyond just technical skills, this module helps you present yourself as a strong candidate. You’ll get help with writing a winning resume, optimizing your LinkedIn profile to get noticed by recruiters, mock interviews, and even salary negotiation tips.

What Makes This Backend Developer Online Course Stand Out?

Live classes and interactive assignments: Get hands-on practice and real-time feedback from industry experts.
Learn from FAANG+ instructors: All teachers are experienced engineers and hiring managers from leading tech companies.
1:1 mentorship and coaching: Personalized support to guide you through the course and interviews.
Mock interviews: Practice with professionals so you’re not caught off guard on the big day. You’ll be asked questions that are likely to come up in real interviews. We will also use our unique Power Patterns solution so you can confidently answer questions that you might not have prepared for.
Flexible learning options: Access recorded sessions and learn at your own pace.

Whether you’re just starting your career or looking to level up, this backend developer training is tailored to help you grow. Many alumni have seen massive improvements in both confidence and offer packages after completing this course, so it is well worth the investment of time and money.

Who is the Backend Developer Training Suitable For?

This backend developer online course is ideal for anyone who wants to strengthen their backend skills and get interview-ready—no matter where you are in your career. Here’s who will benefit the most:

Software engineers preparing for backend interviews:
If you’re already working in tech and are getting ready for interviews, this course will help you sharpen your coding, system design, and problem-solving skills. It’s perfect for leveling up before applying for positions at top companies.
Developers transitioning into backend roles:
This course is ideal for frontend developer, full-stack engineer, or even for professionals coming from a different tech role looking to specialize in backend engineering. This course gives you a solid foundation and a clear backend developer learning path to make that transition confidently.
Professionals targeting FAANG and other top tech companies:
If your goal is to land a job at a major tech company like Google, Amazon, Meta, or any other leading firm, this backend developer course is built specifically to prepare you for their rigorous interview processes. You’ll learn exactly what these companies are looking for, and how to stand out from the thousands of other candidates applying for the same roles.

If you’re looking for a proven, in-depth backend engineer course that sets you up for success, Interview Kickstart’s Backend Engineering Interview Masterclass has you covered. Join thousands of engineers who’ve boosted their careers by mastering backend development the right way. Read Less

Practice and track progress on UpLevel

UpLevel will be your all-in-one learning platform to get you FAANG-ready, with 10,000+ interview questions, timed tests, videos, mock interviews suite, and more.

Mock interviews suite

On-demand timed tests

In-browser online judge

10,000 interview questions

100,000 hours of video explanations

Class schedules & activity alerts

Real-time progress update

11 programming languages

Get upto 15 mock interviews with

hiring managers

What makes our mock Interviews the best:

Hiring managers from Tier-1 companies like Google & Apple

Interview with the best. No one will prepare you better!

Domain-specific Interviews

Practice for your target domain - Back-End Engineering

Detailed personalized feedback

Identify and work on your improvement areas

Transparent, non-anonymous interviews

Get the most realistic experience possible

More about mock interviews

1. Flexible schedule

Pick timings convenient to you

4. Technical and behavioral interviews

Uplevel your technical and behavioral interview skills

2. Remote interview experience

Mirrors the current format of remote interviews

5. Level-specific interviews

Because an L4 at Google can be quite different from an E7 at Meta

3. Feedback documentation

All the feedback you’ve ever wanted, recorded and documented

6. Interviewer of your choice

Choose based on company and/or domain

Career impact

Our engineers land high-paying and rewarding offers from the biggest tech companies, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, and Netflix.

Ammar Ali

Works at:

I joined Interview Kickstart for their Software Engineering program, and it was one of the best decisions for my career. The program targets all critical aspects of technical interview preparation for Android developers. The instructors are industry veterans, making learning insightful. The comprehensive curriculum covers data structures, algorithms, and system design. Personalized feedback from mock interviews was instrumental in identifying strengths and areas for improvement. Highly recommended!

Igor Kuksov

Placed at:

Highly recommended! Interview Kickstart's course content is exceptional, offering extensive optional materials for in-depth understanding of Coding and System Design. The interactive live sessions and mock interviews boost confidence, preparing candidates for real interviews. Additionally, they provide invaluable support in job applications and securing references at major tech companies like Amazon, Dropbox, and Microsoft. This program is comprehensive and practical for technical interview preparation.

Sudhan Gaikwad

Works at:

Best experience with support staff I am very happy whenever I deal with support staff and they are very co-operative. I have sorted out all my doubts and questions in time whenever I contacted them. Also I am very pleased with their latest updated curriculum. Surely I will recommend joining IK for a career boost. Thanks.

Nagarjan Kanna

Works at:

Great for DSA, System Design and Behavior InterviewsGreat Foundational videos & Classes on DSA. Very clear structure on how to answer System Design and Behavior Interviews. Operations team is very responsive and helps resolve all queries in timely manner which helps us continue with our prep without interruptions. Strongly recommend their BE and EM programs.

Saravanan K

Works at:

Top Coaches and Materials In the sea of technical resources, it's hard to find a good place to start. IK offers tailored approach for various technical streams taught by tech gurus from Top companies. The guidance provided by Career Advocates and Career coaches has completely changed the approach of Career Transformations and increased visibility of profile.

How to enroll for the Back-End Engineering Interview Course?

Learn more about Interview Kickstart and the Back-end Engineering course by joining the free webinar hosted by Ryan Valles, co-founder of Interview Kickstart.

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A Free Guide to Kickstart Your Back-End Engineering Career at FAANG+

From the interview process and career path to interview questions and salary details — learn everything you need to know about Back-End Engineering careers at top tech companies.

It's Free

Interview Strategy and Success

Interview Questions

Career Path

Salary and Levels at FAANG

Frequently Asked Questions

What to Expect at Back-End Engineering Interviews

Generally, the interview process for back-end engineers is divided into the following segments:

Recruiter screening

The hiring recruiter will contact you by phone to discuss his or her work experience. The recruiter will determine which roles you are qualified for based on your work experience. Knowing which projects and experiences you want to talk about before going into the interview can be helpful.

After going through this round, you should receive a follow-up email from the recruiter that will include an online technical assessment.

Online assessment

This interview is an online screening of your programming skills. You will have about 90 minutes to complete three coding challenges similar to Leetcode. In each challenge, you will be tested on data structures and algorithms. It is important that you write compiling code and pass the majority of the test cases shown in the UI.

To prepare for this round, you should:

Be thorough with data structures and algorithms in a particular language (IE python, java, etc.)
Revise space and time complexities
Practice problems online on websites like Leetcode

Final interview stage

This round consists of 4-6 interviews of one-hour each. These rounds are as follows:

2- 3 technical programming interviews
1-2 system design interview
One behavioral interview

Technical Programming Interviews

These interviews will each consist of one programming challenge, where you will be given a coding challenge similar to the ones in the online assessment, but this time with an actual SDE.

The challenges will test your knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and OOP. During the problem-solving stage, you will be asked about test cases, time/space complexity, and ways to improve the solution.

Using an online coding practice website like Leetcode to prepare for the back-end engineer interview questions on tech programming can be extremely beneficial. While practicing, make sure to include questions about algorithms, data structures, and object-oriented programming.

System Design Interview

This section will be with a Hiring Manager or principal engineer who will test your system design skills. An example of a system design question could be “Design Instagram,” in which you should:

Dive into the requirements and assumptions
Layout the architecture
Define some databases
Define some APIs
Define performance-related parts of your design

This section is about designing the software rather than coding it. However, depending on the problem, you may have to pseudo-code at times.

To prepare for the back-end engineer interview questions on system design, you should practice software design. You should understand servers, caching, performance-related topics, databases, APIs, etc.

Behavioral Interview

A “Bar Raiser” conducts this back-end engineer interview on behavioral skills, which is primarily about the experience and how one can relate to specific behavioral topics and scenarios. In an Amazon interview, for example, you will be asked behavioral questions about their leadership principles, and the interviewer will assess whether or not your answers align with the company’s values.

You should prepare for this section by understanding Amazon’s 16 Leadership Principles and how your experience relates to them. Also, when you are explaining your solution, try to use the STAR (situation, task, action, and result) method to break down your answer.

Final decision

After the final round of back-end engineer interview questions, you should hear back within two weeks. During the interview, your technical skills and behavioral responses will be compared to the technical competencies of the role, as well as the principles of the company, to see if you’re a good fit.

To clear the tough interviews at the top tech companies globally, you’ll need to have the right skills. Read 7 Back-end Developer Skills You Must Have to Crack Tech Interviews and start getting ready!

Back-End Engineering Interview Questions

Back-end developer interview questions for beginners evaluate the basic understanding of different programming languages. The difficulty level of questions keeps increasing as per your experience level. Advanced back-end engineering interview questions are focused on the framework of back-end development, technologies, languages, etc.

The back-end engineer developer questions can be classified into three buckets:

Back-End Engineering Interview Questions on Coding

Given the root node of a binary tree, clone it (clone every node of the tree) and return the root node of the cloned tree.

Given a binary tree and an integer k, find all the root to leaf paths that sum to k.

Given a set of integers and a target value k, find whether there is a non-empty subset that sums up to k.

Count the number of inversions in a given array of numbers. A pair (nums[i], nums[j]) is said to form an inversion if nums[i] > nums[j] and i < j.

Given a sorted dictionary of an alien language, find the order of characters in the alphabet.

For some of the most popular coding questions for software engineers, go over Top Coding Interview Questions for Software Engineers.

Domain-specific Back-End Engineering Interview Questions

How will you implement indexing for all the payments for an e-commerce application?

Design an API for a weather application using REST and non-REST architecture styles

How to test an API for security threats? Understanding the threats and then working on steps to prevent security threats: XSS, CSRF, SQL injection, input sanitization.

Build a mathematical library for a computer algebra system like Mathematica

What properties govern transaction reliability? What are the characteristics of data inconsistency? What is transaction isolation, and how would you use it for concurrency control?

Back-End Engineering Interview Questions on Behavioral Skills

Tell us about a time when you received criticism about your work and how you handled it.

If you have to deliver negative feedback to members of your development team, how would you do it?

Tell me about your favorite development project to date and what it was like from start to finish.

Describe a conflict you had with your manager or team member.

How would you handle dependencies in cross-functional teams?

Back-End Engineering Career

Deciding to be a back-end engineer can be an exciting and rewarding career choice. However, before that, you’ll need to first learn all there is to know about the role and then start preparing for the back-end engineer interview.

Back-End Engineering Job Roles and Responsibilities

Back-end developers build programs and establish workflows that are focused on how a web application works. Then, they lay the code that powers web applications with functionality and logic. Back-end programming requires a tech stack consisting of servers, libraries, applications, and databases.

Even though the specific responsibilities of back end developers may vary from company to company, their key responsibilities include:

Working on server-side logic and outward-facing web application elements

Optimizing the applications for maximum speed and scalability

Designing data storage solution

Developing content management system and maintaining the same

Troubleshooting and debugging applications

Creating reusable code and libraries for future use

Write code and tests, build prototypes, solve issues, profile and analyze bottlenecks

Design robust APIs that support mobile and desktop clients

To understand the different roles of a back-end developer better, here’s how the responsibilities change as you move up the ladder:

Junior Backend developer

Has approximately 1-2 years experience and basic programming foundations. The roles and responsibilities of an entry-level back-end engineer involve:

Collaborating with other developers to plan and build features for current products.

Contributing to the design and architecture of the application servers, Enhance analytics and overall backend architecture for better performance.

Write high-quality, structured application/interface code, and documentation and take part in code review procedures to find security vulnerabilities or poor code quality issues before new code is made available to the public

Create and consume RESTful APIs.

Design, develop, and maintain internal and external applications. Build efficient, testable, and reusable modules.

Identify solutions through research and collaboration that resolves the root of problems as they arise.

Senior Backend developer

Has approximately 2-8 years of experience and is responsible for server-side web application logic and integration of the work front-end developers do. The roles and responsibilities of a senior-level back-end engineer involve:

Developing new features and functionality for various pages in an application

Continuously improving, refactoring, and modernizing the existing codebase

Monitoring quality, optimizing performance, and developing test coverage and methodologies for continuous code release

Understand architectural patterns of large, high-scale web applications, such as well-designed APIs, high-volume data pipelines, and design efficient algorithms.

Work with the product managers, the technical leads, the experience designers, and other software developers to do research, and implement various workflows.

Implement the cloud and microservices stack, connecting cloud platforms and tools to partner and customer ecosystems

Design, prototype, implement, test, and troubleshoot backend workflows according to market requirements and product specifications

Lead Backend Developer

Has an experience of 8+ years of experience and acts as a technology professional who guides projects and manages development teams. They’ve often experienced experts with lots of industry knowledge and skills that qualify them to mentor teams and communicate with others outside their department. The roles and responsibilities of a senior-level back-end engineer involve:

Participate in the design, implementation, and testing of distributed systems in an agile environment. Decompose high-level and complex requirements into task-level work for themselves and others on the team.

Ability to understand and build complex systems to solve challenging analytical problems, complete research activities for new features and enhancements, and contribute to design and code reviews

Engage in engineering culture to consistently deliver value to our customers and business

Lead, coach, mentor, and work with other developers to design and implement secure, scalable, highly available services using our core web technologies.

Make recommendations for the development and implementation of complex projects that require comprehensive and in-depth analysis and understanding of the client’s requirements.

Design and Develop Highly Scalable, Available microservices using Microservices Architecture.

Build APIs and services that support both mobile apps offered by CVSHealth and are used internally.

Migrate on-prem web applications and backend services to the cloud.

Drive best practice, quality, and consistency within design and development phases

Contributing to team meetings, troubleshooting development and production problems across multiple environments and operating platforms

Staff Backend developer

Has an experience over a range of 10-15+ years and works on the technical team at an organization, to decode, design, develop, and maintain company backend systems and servers to ensure an efficient user experience.

Plays a leadership role in maintaining and improving the web stack, data architecture, build, deploy & test, software lifecycle, and platform scalability

Leading the development of internal and administrative tools required for products to scale

Be the technical leader for the team of engineers building best-in-class software

As a self-motivated and enthusiastic member of the team, collaborate with extremely smart and proficient peers leading and designing solutions with a strong background in distributed systems, and large-scale database systems.

Work in an agile environment with a focus on problem-solving and engineering perfection. As a technical lead, A staff backend developer is expected to assess business problems, design optimal solutions, and drive implementation to meet the business expectations.

Collaborate closely with peers, Architects, Product Managers, Business Analysts, Quality Engineers, and Operations teams to develop innovative solutions that meet functional and non-functional standards and expectations.

As a staff backend engineer, you will guide junior and senior engineers in your team and also across domain teams in building scalable, high-speed, distributed applications and advocate for meeting the design and quality standards.

For a more detailed description of these roles and responsibilities, read What Is the Career Path for Back-end Engineers? Learn more about the different roles and how to prepare for back-end engineer interviews.

Back-End Engineer Levels at FAANG

More responsibilities are added to your job description as you gain experience and knowledge. Companies use levels to represent this ascension. Companies essentially determine job levels to classify tasks such as compensation structure, leadership, and accountability.

The software engineer levels at FAANG companies are

Facebook: E3 (entry-level) → E4 → E5 → E6 → E7 → E8 (equivalent to Director; D1)
Apple: ICT 2 (entry-level) → ICT 3 → ICT 4 → ICT 5 → ICT 6 (highest level for a software engineer)
Amazon: L4 (SDE I) → L5 (SDE II) → L6 (SDE III) → L7 (Principal SDE) → L8 (Senior Principal SDE) → L10 (Distinguished Engineer)
Netflix: Unlike other FAANG companies, there is only one level on the ladder of progression for software engineers. The company strictly hires only experienced employees; thus, the Netflix senior software engineer position is the only level.
Google: L3 → L4 → L5 → L6 → L7 (Senior Staff Software Engineer) → L8 (Principal Software Engineer) → L9 (Distinguished Software Engineer) → L10 (Google Fellow) → L11 (Google Senior Fellow)

Facebook Back-End Engineer Salary

The average annual Facebook software engineer salary, ranked by level, is given below

Back-End Engineer at Facebook

Average compensation by level

Level name

Total

Base

Stock (/yr)

Bonus

$184K

$122K

$42K

$21K

$265K

$162K

$83K

$22K

$386K

$196K

$156K

$35K

$574K

$229K

$297K

$50K

$914K

$270K

$574K

$77K

$1.49M

$304K

$1.10M

$88K

Amazon Back-End Engineer Salary

The annual Amazon software engineer salary at different levels has been given below:

Back-End Engineer at Amazon

Average compensation by level

Level name

Total

Base

Stock (/yr)

Bonus

SDE I

$166K

$126K

$22K

$20K

SDE II

$232K

$154K

$65K

$19K

SDE III

$336K

$169K

$157K

$18K

Principal SDE

$592K

$180K

$392K

$31K

Senior Principal SDE

$820K

$195K

$625K

Apple Back-End Engineer Salary

Based on the different levels of hierarchy in the company, the average annual Apple software engineer salary has been given below:

Back-End Engineer at Apple

Average compensation by level

Level name

Total

Base

Stock (/yr)

Bonus

ICT2

$163K

$125K

$26K

$16K

ICT3

$216K

$147K

$55K

$18K

ICT4

$315K

$184K

$106K

$26K

ICT5

$447K

$216K

$194K

$39K

ICT6

$738K

$269K

$409K

$61K

Netflix Back-End Engineer Salary

As we’ve mentioned above, Netflix doesn’t have different levels for software engineers. The company only hires senior software engineers, and the average salary of a Netflix software engineer is estimated to be $511K (excluding bonus).

However, this value varies as per the office location, the seniority of the employee, and years of experience. An overview of total compensation received by Netflix software engineers:

Back-End Engineer at Netflix

Average compensation by level

Level name

Total

Base

Stock (/yr)

Bonus

Sr. SW. Engineer

$305K

$275K

$14K

$13K

Google Back-End Engineer Salary

The average Google software engineer salary at different levels has been given below:

Back-End Engineer at Google

Average compensation by level

Level name

Total

Base

Stock (/yr)

Bonus

$190K

$131K

$39K

$21K

$267K

$159K

$81K

$29K

$357K

$188K

$133K

$37K

$493K

$225K

$218K

$57K

$695K

$265K

$348K

$85K

$1.04M

$332K

$605K

$120K

You can learn more about more related topics on our companies page.

FAQs on Data Science Interview Course

Is the Back-End Engineering Interview Course for freshers?

No, the Back-end Engineering Interview Course is built for working professionals with a minimum experience of 2 years. The course is specifically designed keeping with the demands of working professionals.

What does a back-end engineer do?

The job of a back-end developer is to maintain the various databases and prepare all the information on the server to power the client-facing side of the website/application. This includes looking after core application logic, data and application integration, and API.

What are the on-site rounds at the back-end engineering interview?

The on-site interview rounds are built to test your analytical and problem-solving capabilities. Your knowledge of core DSA and systems design is extensively evaluated. The following are the different on-site rounds at a typical technical interview at a FAANG+ company.

What skills are required to become a back-end developer?

Some of the must-have skills required to land good back-end developer jobs include knowledge of back-end programming languages, algorithms, data structures, distributed systems design, databases, good communication skills, and so on.

What qualifications are required to become a back-end engineer?

You’ll need to have a bachelor’s/master’s degree in computer science or a related field.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FULL STACK DEVELOPER AND BACKEND DEVELOPER

Backend developer: The backend is the area that the typical user is unable to view. Databases and server applications fall under this category. The apps and modules that are required “behind the hood” are programmed by a backend developer. Backend developers deal with database programming, services, and microservices, in addition to interfaces (API).

The responsibilities of a backend developer include Commonly the responsibilities of a backend engineer would like

Design and build business logic and infrastructure: Business and infrastructural logic are dealt with by backend engineers. The logic defined by the business is known as business logic. Validation and flow are standard components of business logic. The primary role of a backend engineer is to guarantee that the code follows and implements the component’s business rules whenever a new feature (or tweaks an existing one) gets developed.
Database Management: Backend engineers work with the database, curating it and communicating with it. A database management system might include determining which entities to keep in the database and creating them, building new tables, or modifying existing ones by adding or removing fields, changing constraints, etc. The designing, managing, and maintaining of databases play a crucial role in backend engineers’ daily lives.
API Design and Development: Creating application programming interfaces (APIs) that expose data and application functionality for usage by developers and users are referred to as API design. APIs are critical for modern businesses, as they provide new capabilities to everything from operations and products to partnership strategies. API design and development are some of the core activities of a backend engineer.
Integrations with third-party services: A software application has numerous moving parts. It’s not merely a framework for a language. Third-party services such as Amazon Web Services, Stripe, Google Pay, and others are now integrated into software applications. Backend developers work with these services and incorporate them into software applications.
Operations like security, performance, and scalability of the application: Backend engineers also handle operations work. They are in charge of a company’s software application’s performance, optimization, and security. Infrastructure work may entail dealing with monitoring/alerting services to track an application’s performance.

How to enroll for the Back-End Engineering Interview Course?

Learn more about Interview Kickstart and the Back-end Engineering course by joining the free webinar hosted by Ryan Valles, co-founder of Interview Kickstart.

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Course Overview

Why choose this course?

Program designed by FAANG+ leads

Individualized teaching and 1:1 help

Mock interviews with Silicon Valley engineers

Personalized feedback

Career skills development

50% Money-Back Guarantee*

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Back-End Engineering Interview Course Curriculum

Sorting

Recursion

Trees

Graphs

Dynamic Programming

Online Processing Systems

Batch Processing Systems

Stream Processing Systems

Database Design

Object Modeling

API Design

Cloud-Native Design

Concurrency

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15 mock interviews

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Self-paced content on additional topics for Data Structures and Algorithms

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hiring managers

Hiring managers from Tier-1 companies like Google & Apple

Domain-specific Interviews

Detailed personalized feedback

Transparent, non-anonymous interviews

1. Flexible schedule

4. Technical and behavioral interviews

2. Remote interview experience

5. Level-specific interviews

3. Feedback documentation

6. Interviewer of your choice

Career impact

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Igor Kuksov

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A Free Guide to Kickstart Your Back-End Engineering Career at FAANG+

Interview Strategy and Success

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Salary and Levels at FAANG

Frequently Asked Questions

What to Expect at Back-End Engineering Interviews

Back-End Engineering Interview Questions

Back-End Engineering Career

Back-End Engineer Levels at FAANG

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