
Ask HN: Is there success for back-end developers?  - mkice
I consider myself a back-end developer.  I work on server apps mostly in c++, parsers, etc... systems that usually run on cron jobs, and not generally consumer facing.  I don't do front end-design well, or even at all.  Most of my ideas are very technical, and would not apply to anyone but a small subset of developers.<p>I believe that developers with ideas such as mine, are usually doing work for someone else, full time.<p>I've written several systems, that are pretty cool, but usually are the type to be open-sourced.  A recent example is a memcache like server I created, that stores the expiring data in the background on cloud storage, and can later be retrieved and reloaded into the memcache like server.  Stuff like this is really great, but a lot of sites don't get to be the size where they'd need to use it, and when coming up to needing something like this, its usually created by some big company out of need (like memcache) and then open sourced.  This is not something I'd go with for a start-up, and merely an example.  But this is mostly the kind of programs I write.<p>Are there any back-end developers here that have done a start-up, and become reasonably satisfied with their success (with a back-end idea?) or should I be looking into Objective-C for a Mobile game?  Creating the next remote-control my MacBookPro app, or even looking at some SAAS?  In the end, my web design skills are poor, I don't want to be forced into a web niche, I want to do back-end development, but for myself, or in a start-up.
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terra_t
Personally I like doing "back-end" development a lot -- you can be more
productive that way, because a lot of the BS in software development comes
from the requirements and testing issues that come from UI work.

That said, success at web apps requires somebody have a holistic understanding
of "how it all works". The most common antipattern I've seen in commercial web
software is that some guys who wrote

* mainframe apps * command like UNIX apps * applications people telnet into, or * Windows GUI apps

want to "move a product to the web" and end up copying the way they did things
before -- and not understanding the holistic properties of the environment
(for instance, don't bind a cookie-based 'session' to a long-running process
in the background if you can at all help it) they make products that suck.

Now, there are a lot of companies out there doing exciting things that involve
exciting back-end work, so I say go out and find it.

There certainly are products that need making: personally I know I'll need to
get off Mysql at some point because it doesn't have a future, but the current
"NoSQL" products are a joke. I could really use something that's like an RDF
store on heavy doses of steroids, written by people who don't believe in the
RDF religion... Kind of CycL for the next generation.

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charlesdm
Sure -- there's plenty of stuff you can do. I'm a developer similar to you,
the majority of my work is in C++ and C oriented languages.

Some things to consider

\- Mobile apps and games (Iphone, Android, etc) -- Anything that doesnt
require UI can be wrapped in C++; OpenGL Es Games can be done with minimal
Obj-C usage (< 100lines).

\- Databases

\- Games and game streaming

\- Building some sort of api for anything that requires high performance or
computation such as image recognition, sound recognition etc

\- Bridging certain things that are very low level and connecting them to a
web interface (Might not be for you). For example: Connecting a home
automation system with a web interface or mobile app.

\- Anything so technical that it requires a huge amount of domain expertise to
build properly.

Alternatively, something else you could do is teaming up with a front end web
developer. It's something I'm doing now and we make a great team. He does
everything front end, builds the html/css pages and I basically make them work
with PHP and do anything that requires 'technical' expertise.

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petervandijck
There are some developer-oriented startups that are doing well, like the one
that sends emails for your service (can't remember the name, anyone), it's
basically just an API. Dropbox as well is mostly backend and code and
algorythms, very little UI. Stuff like that.

If you can do something that's hard and high-value for developers with their
own startups, and expose an API, that might be a good startup. How about a
face-identification/recognition startup?

Database startups (nosql stuff) are hard, but also being done (again, can't
think of the exact name, anyone?). But then you're likely gonna be in the
consulting business, apart from building a kick-ass database.

Another example: janrain's RPX, again, it's mostly just an API and code to
mangle all the social services' api's, very little frontend, although there is
definitely sales/consulting involved..

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albertmg
I suppose you're talking about <http://www.mailchimp.com/> for email service

As for database startup there are plenty of them too: cloudera.com, percona,
schoonerinfotech.com , ...

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vgurgov
Hey, thats an interesting topic for me. So my 2c:

Most of ppl calling themselves "backend developers" simply overvalue
themselves. Not talking about you here, so plz dont get it personal. But i
spend way too much time on hiring and thats usually the case: "Hey, i am
backend guy. Stuff like HTML is too stupid for my super-brain!". And when you
actually start asking them what are their main achievements with back-end dev
its turns out that in 99% its simply:

1) Running some bg scripts that are faily OBVIOUS, like sending emails.
(Seriously many ppl think its still a rocket science backend stuff!!) 2)
Connecting to existing APIs or writing own api 3) Scrapping some content,
sending emails etc. 4) Re-writing some existing open source system from
scratch instead of configuring existing one "just for fun" 5) Coding simple
mobile apps, or some backend algorithm for web apps 5) And so on!

I have tons of such stories when smart guys waste their time and keep thinking
they are doing some rocket science simply because they are NOT doing front end
out of principle!

So in fact, no rocket-science, no achievements to value, just some sort of ego
and unwilling to work on certain front end tasks(Where design!=front ent). At
the same time i know many good front end guys who rock at ajax, jquerry, html
etc and still able to do 98% of the same back-end stuff !

All these not to say that there no real backend Gods. There are many. These
guys usually work on DBs, compilers, operation systems, low level programming
for specific devices, drivers, protocols, etc. There are a lot of work and
potential success for such guys!

In most of other areas good hacker(at least in my company) must combine his
backend skill with certain willingness to work on user interface. Otherwise
its getting too expensive (esp for smaller startup) to hire another frontend
guy for him, simply because backend guy is to smart(/lazy) to work with UI

DISC: All above is just my experience of course.

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nl
One word: mogoDB, rethinkDB

(Yeah, that's two words. Off by one errors suck)

