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Back-End Engineering Course
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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.

Backend Engineers!
Get interview-ready with lessons from FAANG+ engineers
Master core Back-end interview concepts
Sharpen your coding and system design interview skills
Backend Engineering Program
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13,500+
Tech professionals trained
$1.267M
Highest offer received by an IK alum
53%
Average salary hike received by alums
Best suited for
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Current or former Back-end Engineers aiming to get hired in Tier-1 tech companies
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Engineers (like Full-stack/Data/Test Engineers) with experience working on distributed systems who want to specialize in Back-end Engineering

Why choose this course?

Comprehensive Curriculum

Program designed by FAANG+ leads

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

Individualized teaching and 1:1 help

Technical coaching, homework assistance, solutions discussion, and individual session
Plenty of 1 x 1 Help

Mock interviews with Silicon Valley engineers

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

Personalized feedback

Constructive, structured, and actionable insights for improved interview performance
Salary Negotiation

Career skills development

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

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
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Patrick Korianski

Software Engineer
6+ years experience
FAANG Company
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Jonathan Carothers

Senior Software Engineer
15+ years experience
FAANG Company
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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
Contact for Pricing

Back-End Engineering Interview Course Curriculum

Data structures and Algorithms
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5 weeks
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5 live classes
1

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
2

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
3

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
4

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
5

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
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3 weeks
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3 live classes
1

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
2

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
3

Stream Processing Systems

  • Case Studies: on APM, Social Connections, Netflix, Google Maps, Trending Topics, YouTube
Back-end Engineering Masterclass
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5 weeks
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5 live classes
1

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.
2

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.
3

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
4

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
5

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
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3 weeks
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3 live classes
1

Interview Preparation

Interview Questions
Interview Strategy
Behavioral Coaching
2

Resume & LinkedIn Masterclass

3

Salary Negotiation Masterclass

Support Period
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6 months
1

15 mock interviews

2

Take classes you missed/retake classes/tests

3

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

4

1:1 technical/career coaching

5

Interview strategy and salary negotiation support

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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.
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Mock interviews suite
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On-demand timed tests
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10,000 interview questions
100,000 hours of video explanations
Class schedules & activity alerts
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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

Career impact

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

Igor Kuksov

Works at:
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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 Interviews
Great 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.

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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.

Ammar Ali

Works at:
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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!

Akriti Bhatt

Software Engineer
Placed at:
Interview Kickstart is a great platform to perfect your basics and get a deep understanding of algorithms. These sessions helped me crack Google and several other companies.
Having struggled for a while to understand what I was doing wrong in interviews and how to behave during an interview, I took the help of 1-1 interview sessions with the mentors and the guidance provided by them helped me understand the problem with my approach.
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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.
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What to Expect at Back-End Engineering Interviews

Generally, the interview process for back-end engineers is divided into the following segments:
1
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.
2
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
3
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
4
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:
1
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.
2
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?
3
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.
1
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:
2
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.
3
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
4
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
5
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
E3
$184K
$122K
$42K
$21K
E4
$265K
$162K
$83K
$22K
E5
$386K
$196K
$156K
$35K
E6
$574K
$229K
$297K
$50K
E7
$914K
$270K
$574K
$77K
E8
$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
$0
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
L3
$190K
$131K
$39K
$21K
L4
$267K
$159K
$81K
$29K
L5
$357K
$188K
$133K
$37K
L6
$493K
$225K
$218K
$57K
L7
$695K
$265K
$348K
$85K
L8
$1.04M
$332K
$605K
$120K
You can learn more about more related topics on our companies page.

Back-End Engineer Interview Course FAQs

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