Service design
Explains boundaries, contracts, state, validation, failure, security, and change strategy.
Focuses on endpoints and framework syntax without system behaviour.
Software, Product, Data & AI
Back-end Developer Job Description
A Back-end Developer builds the services, APIs, data flows, and business logic that make a software product reliable and secure behind its interfaces.
Define the product, language, architecture, scale, data sensitivity, operational ownership, and specialist support.
Candidate-facing template
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Replace bracketed details, remove anything that is not genuinely required, and obtain the appropriate internal approval before advertising.
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Back-end Developer
- Location
- [Location or working arrangement]
- Employment type
- [Full-time, part-time, or contract]
- Reports to
- [Engineering Manager or Back-end Lead]
About the role
[Company name] is seeking a Back-end Developer for [product or services]. You will design and implement reliable application logic and interfaces, evolve data safely, test failure conditions, and help operate the services you release.
What you will be responsible for
- Design and build services, APIs, integrations, jobs, and domain logic within the agreed architecture.
- Model and migrate data with attention to integrity, privacy, compatibility, and recovery.
- Implement authentication, authorisation, validation, error handling, rate limits, and secure defaults.
- Write tests, review code, diagnose production issues, and improve observability and deployment safety.
- Collaborate on contracts, performance, capacity, technical debt, and incremental design decisions.
What success looks like
- Service interfaces are clear, versioned appropriately, and resilient to expected failure.
- Data changes preserve integrity and have a safe migration and recovery path.
- Production behaviour is observable enough for the team to diagnose and improve it.
Essential qualifications
- Strong server-side programming in a relevant language and framework.
- Practical API, database, testing, version-control, and software-design experience.
- Knowledge of security, concurrency, failure, performance, and operational fundamentals.
- Clear review, documentation, debugging, and cross-functional communication.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with [language, database, cloud, messaging, architecture, or domain].
- Exposure to distributed systems, regulated data, high throughput, event-driven design, or platform work.
Tools and working knowledge
- Server-side framework and package tooling used by the team
- Relational or non-relational databases, queues, caches, and API tools
- Version control, CI/CD, cloud, monitoring, security, and incident platforms
Compensation: [Add approved range, currency, bonus or equity, benefits, equipment, on-call terms, and location basis.]
[Company name] will discuss reasonable adjustments and offer accessible alternatives for technical assessment and work.
How to apply
Apply through [method] with a service or data example covering your contribution, design, failure handling, testing, and production learning.
Performance expectations
What good performance looks like
Use these outcomes to replace vague activity lists with the evidence the hiring manager expects to see after the person joins.
Changes meet defined functional, security, reliability, and operational acceptance criteria.
APIs and schemas evolve without avoidable disruption to consumers.
Incidents and defects create targeted tests, monitoring, documentation, or design improvements.
Hiring-manager intake
Questions to settle before advertising
Record specific answers so sourcing, screening, and interview decisions use the same definition of the role.
- 1
Which services, domains, integrations, data stores, scale, and reliability needs are in scope?
- 2
What architecture, language, framework, deployment, and observability environment exists?
- 3
Does the role include design leadership, mentoring, security review, database ownership, or on-call?
- 4
Which capabilities must be present on day one and which can be learnt?
Evaluation criteria
Evidence to use in a Back-end Developer scorecard
Agree the criteria before interviews begin, then score examples against the same evidence standard.
Data judgement
Considers integrity, concurrency, migration, privacy, indexing, backup, and recovery.
Changes a schema without compatibility or rollback planning.
Production ownership
Uses tests, observability, rollout, incident learning, and proportionate reliability.
Treats passing local tests as complete delivery.
Structured interview
Back-end Developer interview questions and strong signals
Ask the same core questions in the same order, then use follow-ups to understand the candidate’s individual contribution.
1
Describe an API change that had to remain compatible with existing consumers.
Strong answer signal
Covers contract discovery, versioning, migration, rollout, monitoring, and retirement.
2
Tell me about a data consistency problem you diagnosed.
Strong answer signal
Explains invariants, concurrency or timing, reproduction, repair, prevention, and verification.
3
How do you decide whether work belongs in a synchronous request or a background job?
Strong answer signal
Balances latency, failure, retries, ordering, user feedback, idempotency, and operations.
Related titles
Check the scope behind the title
Back-end Engineer — often implies wider architecture or engineering-system ownership.
Server-side Developer — a direct alternative emphasising application services.
API Developer — may focus more narrowly on integrations and service interfaces.
Common hiring mistakes
Problems to remove before publishing
Listing every database, language, and cloud service without defining the product problem.
Ignoring operational, security, migration, and on-call responsibility.
Using abstract algorithm tests when the role depends more on service and data judgement.
Continue the hiring workflow
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Source and review notes
How this template was prepared
- Language
- International English
- Prepared by
- ATZ CRM Editorial Team
- Review
- ATZ CRM Recruitment Editorial Review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-05
O*NET: Software Developers
Reference for occupation tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities, and work activities.
ESCO: occupations and skills
Reference for internationally recognised occupation and skills terminology.
Qualifications, compensation, licences, working conditions, and equal-opportunity wording must be checked for the role and location before use.
Recruiter questions
Back-end Developer job description FAQs
What should a Back-end Developer job description include?
Describe services, domain, APIs, data, architecture, security, testing, deployment, operations, on-call, and expected engineering outcomes.
How is back-end different from full-stack?
Back-end developers specialise in server-side systems and data. Full-stack developers also work across browser interfaces, with varying depth.
Should the current programming language be mandatory?
Require it when immediate depth is essential. Otherwise, strong server-side, API, data, and operational foundations may transfer between languages.