Backend
Engineering
Program Curriculum
Advanced 3-Month Curriculum
Program Overview
This intensive 3-month program is designed to elevate your backend engineering skills to an
advanced level. You will delve into core system design principles, advanced API engineering
techniques, robust systems programming, efficient file processing, and modern DevOps practices.
The program culminates in a capstone project where you'll apply your newly acquired knowledge to
build a real-world backend system.
Month 1: Core System Design & Advanced API
Engineering
Focus: Mastering system design fundamentals and building robust, scalable APIs using REST and
GraphQL.
Week 1: System Design Tools:
Fundamentals
Diagramming tools (e.g., draw.io, Lucidchart)
Introduction to System Markdown editors
Design
Scalability and Performance
Availability and Reliability
CAP Theorem
Load Balancing and
Caching
Deliverable: System Design
Document (simple application).
Week 2: REST API Design Tools:
RESTful Principles and Best Swagger/OpenAPI
Practices Postman/Insomnia
API Versioning Code editor (VS Code, IntelliJ)
Authentication and
Authorization (OAuth 2.0,
JWT)
API Documentation
(Swagger/OpenAPI)
Deliverable: REST API Design
Specification (detailed
documentation using
Swagger/OpenAPI).
Week 3: GraphQL API Design Tools:
Introduction to GraphQL Apollo Server
GraphQL Schema Design GraphQL Playground/GraphiQL
Resolvers and Data Graphene (Python)
Fetching
GraphQL vs. REST
Performance Optimization
Deliverable: GraphQL API
Implementation (Node.js/Apollo
Server, Python/Graphene).
Week 4: Real-time Systems & Tools:
Database Engineering
Socket.IO
WebSockets and Server- Kafka/RabbitMQ
Sent Events MongoDB/Cassandra
Real-time Data Streaming Database profiling tools
(Kafka, RabbitMQ)
Database Indexing and
Optimization
Database Sharding and
Replication
NoSQL Databases
(MongoDB, Cassandra)
Deliverable: Real-time Chat
Application (using
WebSockets/Socket.IO) and
Database Schema Design
(optimized for performance).
Month 2: Systems Programming, File Processing, and
Transcoder
Focus: Building robust and efficient systems for file processing and media transcoding.
Week 5: Systems Tools:
Programming Fundamentals
GDB/LLDB
Concurrency and Valgrind
Parallelism (Threads, Concurrency Debuggers
Processes)
Memory Management
Inter-Process
Communication (IPC)
Error Handling and
Debugging
Deliverable: Multithreaded File
Processing Utility
(Python/Go/C++).
Week 6: File Uploads and Tools:
Storage
AWS S3/Google Cloud Storage/Azure Blob Storage
Secure File Upload Handling CDNs (Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront)
Cloud Storage Integration File upload libraries
(AWS S3, Google Cloud
Storage, Azure Blob
Storage)
Content Delivery Networks
(CDNs)
File Metadata Management
Deliverable: File Upload API
(integrated with cloud storage
and CDN).
Week 7: Transcoder Engine Tools:
Introduction to Media FFmpeg
Transcoding MediaInfo
Video and Audio Codecs Video editing software (optional)
Transcoding Pipelines
(FFmpeg)
Watermarking and
Encryption
Deliverable: Basic Media
Transcoder (using FFmpeg).
Week 8: API Gateway & Tools:
Microservice Orchestration
Kong/Traefik
API Gateway Patterns Docker/Docker Compose
Microservice Kubernetes (optional)
Communication (gRPC, gRPC
REST)
Service Discovery
Load Balancing across
Microservices
Orchestration (Kubernetes,
Docker Compose)
Deliverable: API Gateway
Implementation (using
Kong/Traefik) and Microservice
Orchestration Setup (using
Docker Compose).
Month 3: DevOps, Scaling, and Capstone
Focus: Automating deployments, scaling infrastructure, and building a complete backend system.
Week 9: CI/CD Pipelines Tools:
Continuous Integration (CI) Jenkins/GitLab CI/GitHub Actions
Continuous Delivery (CD) Testing frameworks (Jest, PyTest)
Automated Testing (Unit, Deployment tools
Integration, End-to-End)
Deployment Strategies
(Blue-Green, Canary)
Deliverable: CI/CD Pipeline
Setup (using Jenkins/GitLab
CI/GitHub Actions).
Week 10: Cloud Architecture & Tools:
Infrastructure as Code
Terraform/CloudFormation
Cloud Computing Platforms AWS/Google Cloud/Azure CLI
(AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) Docker/Kubernetes
Infrastructure as Code
(Terraform, CloudFormation)
Serverless Computing (AWS
Lambda, Google Cloud
Functions, Azure Functions)
Containerization (Docker,
Kubernetes)
Deliverable: Infrastructure as
Code Deployment (using
Terraform/CloudFormation) for a
simple application.
Week 11: Monitoring & Tools:
Observability
Prometheus/Grafana
Log Management (ELK ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)
Stack, Splunk) Splunk
Metrics Collection Jaeger/Zipkin
(Prometheus, Grafana)
Alerting and Anomaly
Detection
Distributed Tracing
Deliverable: Monitoring
Dashboard Setup (using
Prometheus/Grafana) for a
deployed application.
Week 12: Capstone Project - Tools:
Development & Presentation
All relevant tools from previous weeks
Capstone Project Presentation software
Implementation
Code Review and Testing
Deployment and Scaling
Final Presentation
Preparation
Deliverable: Fully functional
Capstone Project and
Presentation.
Final Deliverables
Capstone Project: A fully functional backend system demonstrating the skills learned throughout
the program. This could be a media transcoding service, a real-time data processing pipeline, or
a scalable API platform.
Code Repository: Complete source code for all assignments and the capstone project, with
clear documentation.
System Design Documents: Detailed design documents outlining the architecture,
components, and scaling strategy for the capstone project.
Deployment and Monitoring Setup: Automated deployment scripts and monitoring dashboards
for the capstone project.
Final Presentation: A presentation summarizing the capstone project, design decisions, and
lessons learned.
