🔧 Backend Developer Roadmap
Go from Python basics to building production-grade APIs. You'll learn FastAPI, PostgreSQL, authentication, AI integration, and the patterns real backend teams use — through a single project you build module by module.
Adjust pace, depth, and focus based on your experience.
Personalized setup
Choose your experience level and goals before beginning.
Module 1
Python for Backend Development
Module 2
Your First API with FastAPI
Module 3
PostgreSQL & Database Design
Module 4
Supabase: Your Managed Backend Platform
Module 5
REST API Design That Developers Love
Module 6
Authentication & Authorization
Module 7
AI-Powered Features with OpenAI
Module 8
Caching & Performance
Personalized setup
Choose your experience level and goals before beginning.
Module 1
Python for Backend Development
Module 2
Your First API with FastAPI
Module 3
PostgreSQL & Database Design
Module 4
Supabase: Your Managed Backend Platform
Module 5
REST API Design That Developers Love
Module 6
Authentication & Authorization
Module 7
AI-Powered Features with OpenAI
Module 8
Caching & Performance
Capstone Project
What you'll build by the end
You'll build TaskForge — an AI-powered project management API. It supports user registration and JWT auth, team workspaces with role-based permissions, task CRUD with filtering/pagination/sorting, AI-generated task summaries and priority suggestions via OpenAI, file attachments stored in Supabase Storage, and Redis caching on hot endpoints. By the final module, you'll have a production-ready API with clean docs, proper error handling, and performance optimizations — the kind of project that demonstrates real backend competence.
Full Curriculum
8 modules · 32 topics · 8-12 weeks
Module 1
Python for Backend Development
Level up your Python with the patterns that matter for backend work — type safety, async programming, structured error handling, and clean project setup.
- 1Type Hints & Pydantic: Validate Data Before It Hurts You
- 2Async/Await: Why Backend Python Is Concurrent Now
- 3Structured Error Handling: Custom Exceptions, Logging & Tracebacks
- 4Project Setup: venv, pip-tools, pyproject.toml & Dependency Pinning
Project: Initialize the TaskForge project: set up a virtual environment, create a typed data model layer with Pydantic, and build a CLI script that reads a JSON config file, validates it, and handles malformed input gracefully with structured logging.
Module 2
Your First API with FastAPI
Build a working API from scratch. You'll go from a single endpoint to a structured app with validation, dependency injection, and auto-generated docs — all in FastAPI.
- 1Hello FastAPI: Routes, Path Params & Query Params
- 2Request & Response Models: Let Pydantic Guard Your API
- 3Dependency Injection: Share Database Connections, Auth & Config
- 4Middleware, CORS & Request Lifecycle Hooks
- 5Background Tasks: Offload Work Without Blocking Responses
Project: Build the TaskForge API skeleton: create CRUD endpoints for tasks (/tasks, /tasks/{id}) with Pydantic request/response models, input validation that returns clear error messages, and interactive Swagger docs at /docs.
Module 3
PostgreSQL & Database Design
Design a real database schema, write queries that actually perform, and understand how indexes, joins, and migrations work under the hood.
- 1Schema Design: Tables, Relationships & When to Normalize
- 2SQL That Does Real Work: Joins, Subqueries & Window Functions
- 3Indexes: Why Your Query Is Slow and How to Fix It
- 4Migrations: Evolving Your Schema Without Breaking Production
Project: Design the TaskForge schema: users, teams, tasks, and comments tables with proper foreign keys, indexes on filterable columns, and a migration script. Write queries for task listing with team joins, overdue task aggregation, and pagination.
Module 4
Supabase: Your Managed Backend Platform
Connect your FastAPI app to a real database with Supabase. Set up Row-Level Security so users only see their own data, integrate auth, and add file storage — no infrastructure management needed.
- 1Supabase Setup: Connecting Python to a Real Database
- 2Row-Level Security: Let the Database Enforce Permissions
- 3Auth Integration: Verifying Supabase JWTs in FastAPI
- 4File Storage: Uploads, Signed URLs & Size Limits
Project: Migrate TaskForge to Supabase: create tables via the dashboard, connect the Python client, add RLS policies so users can only access tasks in their team, and build a /tasks/{id}/attachments endpoint that uploads files to Supabase Storage with signed download URLs.
Module 5
REST API Design That Developers Love
Learn the conventions that make APIs intuitive and professional. Good API design isn't subjective — there are proven patterns for URLs, responses, errors, and documentation.
- 1URL Design: Nouns, Nesting & the Patterns Everyone Expects
- 2Pagination Done Right: Offset vs. Cursor & the Link Header
- 3Filtering, Sorting & Search: Query Param Conventions
- 4Error Responses: HTTP Status Codes & RFC 7807 Problem Details
- 5API Documentation: OpenAPI/Swagger That Actually Helps
Project: Refactor TaskForge's endpoints to follow REST conventions: implement cursor-based pagination on /tasks, add filter params (?status=open&assignee=me&sort=-created_at), return RFC 7807 Problem Details on errors, and generate a clean OpenAPI spec.
Module 6
Authentication & Authorization
Secure your API with real-world auth patterns. Understand JWTs from the inside, implement role-based access control, and protect against the attacks that actually happen.
- 1JWT Deep Dive: Access Tokens, Refresh Tokens & Token Rotation
- 2Login & Registration: Hashing Passwords, Issuing Tokens
- 3Protecting Endpoints: Auth Dependencies & Current User Injection
- 4Role-Based Access Control: Team Roles, Resource Ownership & Scopes
- 5Security Essentials: CORS, Rate Limiting, Input Sanitization & HTTPS
Project: Add auth to TaskForge: implement signup/login with JWT access + refresh tokens, create a dependency that extracts and validates the current user on every request, add role-based permissions (owner/admin/member per team), and lock down endpoints so members can't delete tasks they don't own.
Module 7
AI-Powered Features with OpenAI
Add AI capabilities to your API using the OpenAI Python SDK. Learn to stream responses, manage costs, handle failures, and build features users actually want.
- 1The OpenAI Python SDK: Chat Completions, System Prompts & Models
- 2Streaming Responses: Server-Sent Events in FastAPI
- 3Embeddings & Semantic Search: Find Tasks by Meaning, Not Keywords
- 4Production AI: Retries, Timeouts, Cost Tracking & Fallbacks
Project: Build three AI features for TaskForge: (1) POST /tasks/{id}/summarize — generates a concise summary of a task and its comments, (2) POST /tasks/suggest-priority — analyzes task descriptions and suggests priority levels with reasoning, (3) POST /tasks/search — semantic search over tasks using embeddings. All endpoints stream responses and include retry logic with exponential backoff.
Module 8
Caching & Performance
Make your API fast. Learn where to cache, how to invalidate properly, and how to find and fix the real bottlenecks in a backend application.
- 1Caching Strategies: When, Where & What to Cache
- 2Redis in Practice: Keys, TTL, Invalidation & Cache-Aside Pattern
- 3HTTP Caching: ETags, Cache-Control & Conditional Requests
- 4Finding Bottlenecks: Profiling Queries, N+1 Problems & Connection Pools
Project: Add Redis caching to TaskForge: cache the team task list with automatic invalidation on writes, add ETags to GET /tasks/{id} so clients skip unchanged responses, and run load tests comparing cached vs. uncached performance.
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