You seem like a novice and I think a lot of the other answers here are focussing on fairly random/advanced concepts that are probably a bit difficult to takle i

You seem like a novice and I think a lot of the other answers here are focussing on fairly random/advanced concepts that are probably a bit difficult to takle in a meaningful way without getting your head around the following: 1) Get a grasp of what a "back end" _actually is_. When learning- be mindful of what you are going to tackle, and what you are going to leave alone so that you don't get overwhelmed. (In heavier technology environments, you don't really talk about "back end development" since the back end is subdivided into so many separate disciplines. Therefore "back end development" tends to be something that smaller web shops use to encompass everything that is going on on application servers- DONT FEEL THAT YOU HAVE TO BE AN EXPERT IN ALL OF THIS STUFF) 2) Have a reasonable grasp of all of available hosting platforms and their relative pros and cons: Windows/Linux, cloud/local, aws/axure, etc. 3) Get familiar with the lumps of code and/or services that you need to make an application server available to actually do "a thing". 4) Get familiar with standard software development workflow- version control, bug tracking, testing and deployment. 5) Develop a healthy attitude towards application security- understand that it takes a lot of knowledge and effort to make an application 99% secure. Learn how to do what you can with the resources you have at your disposal. On one end of the spectrum you need to know stuff like "never store a password in cleartext", on the other you have to be aware of essentially unsolvable problems like 0-day exploits and social engineering. 6) Get good at communication and teamwork. A backend, by its very nature, needs to talk and get along with other systems so therefore a back end developer needs to talk and get along with other humans.