Backend Engineers: The Unsung Designers of the Digital World
Backend engineers engage in design decisions daily.
👋 Hi, this is Thomas, with a new issue of “Beyond Code: System Design and More”, where I geek out on all things system design, software architecture, distributed systems and… well, more.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“Startups are agile boats, but the decisions you make on day one do have rippling consequences over time. I now appreciate that the infrastructure, frameworks and languages you choose will stick with you for a really long time” - David Mack, CTO at SketchDeck
We often associate the term "designer" with roles focused on visual aesthetics—think UI/UX designers crafting intuitive interfaces. However, design transcends mere visuals; it's fundamentally about making strategic decisions to achieve specific objectives.
In this light, backend software engineers are indeed designers, meticulously architecting systems, dependencies, and data structures that profoundly influence user experiences.
The Pragmatic Side of Design
Design embodies both creativity and pragmatism. While the artistic aspect emphasizes appealing and intuitive interfaces that users immediately notice, the pragmatic side focuses on performance, scalability, and maintainability—qualities that, though less visible, are crucial for a seamless user experience.
Backend engineers engage in design decisions daily, such as defining system architecture, integrating microservices, selecting SaaS providers, modifying APIs, and structuring data. These choices, though often behind the scenes, directly impact application performance, reliability, and efficiency.
For instance, factors like loading times, search speed, and overall responsiveness are outcomes of thoughtful backend design.
The Artistry of Backend Engineers
Labeling backend engineers as "artists" might seem unconventional until one considers the creativity, intuition, adaptability, and problem-solving prowess required to build complex distributed systems.
Given multiple approaches to achieve a goal, the backend engineer must select a design that meets current requirements and gracefully evolves over time.
On a macro level, backend engineers must adapt to industry-wide technological shifts. For example, programming has transitioned from writing code from scratch to an assembly-like approach, where engineers carefully select and integrate components, libraries, and frameworks to create cohesive systems. Additionally, embracing new software architectures and programming paradigms is essential to meet the demands of distributed systems and cloud-native applications.
At the business level, engineers may need to craft designs that evolve over time to accommodate changing product requirements or leverage emerging technologies like large language models (LLMs). The continuous evolution of the tech landscape adds layers of complexity to software engineering, making the backend engineer's role both challenging and vital.
The artistry of backend engineers is evident in their meticulous design of system architectures, selection of elegant coding solutions, and crafting of data structures that ensure seamless software operation.
(PS. Notably, many engineers also excel in visual arts or music, suggesting a correlation between technical proficiency and artistic talent.)
Why Every Developer Should Learn System Design
In today's world of distributed systems, mastering system design is non-negotiable for developers. Modern software systems demand scalability, resiliency, and consistency, involving numerous components and interactions. Coordinating these elements is complex, and effective software design is crucial to prevent issues like poor performance, data inconsistency, security vulnerabilities, and system failures.
In conclusion, backend software engineers embody the essence of design through their strategic decisions and creative problem-solving. Recognizing and honing these design skills is imperative for developers aiming to build robust, efficient, and user-centric systems.
Original article:
📚 Interesting Articles & Resources
In the real world, you might need more than a simple Work Queue. -
Raul emphasizes that while simple work queues may suffice early on, real-world systems often demand more sophisticated patterns to handle diverse workflows. It introduces five event-driven design strategies—copier, process & filter, process & split, sharder, and merger—that help engineers build more scalable, reliable, and maintainable systems. These patterns enable better load distribution, targeted processing, and integration of multiple data sources, making them essential tools for anyone designing high-throughput backend systems or working with distributed architectures.
SkipList: A probabilistic data structure -
This article introduces SkipLists, a probabilistic data structure that offers efficient search, insertion, and deletion operations within a sorted sequence. Unlike balanced trees, SkipLists use multiple layers of linked lists with forward pointers, allowing elements to be "skipped" during searches. This structure achieves average-case time complexities of O(log n) for fundamental operations, making it a compelling alternative to traditional balanced trees due to its simplicity and performance.
Love this take.
Backend work rarely gets called "design," but that’s exactly what it is—just less visible.
Every decision, from choosing a framework to how you model your data, shapes how the system behaves long-term.
It's like invisible UX—users feel it even if they don’t see it.
Thanks for the mention, Thomas!