Back ends and APIs in Java

The part of your software nobody sees and nothing works without. I have been building it since 2014, mostly with Java and Spring.

How I work

A back end goes together quickly and comes apart slowly. So my first stretch of work isn’t code, it’s your vocabulary: what counts as a case here, what as a task, when is something considered closed. Only once that is named do the tables and the interfaces end up in the right places.

I started with Java and PL/SQL on enterprise projects, then added Spring, Node and PHP. What stuck: documented interfaces, migrations you can retrace, and error messages that tell operations what to do. If you bring somebody else in later, they shouldn’t have to ring me.

Typical jobs

01
A new service that keeps using an existing database
02
Extending a grown API without breaking its old callers
03
Tidying up a data model and writing the migration for it
04
Reports that run overnight and are ready in the morning
05
User management and permissions that survive an audit

With what

Java, Spring Boot, Node.js, Express, PHP, REST and OpenAPI, SQL, PL/SQL, MongoDB, SQLite, Redis

Where you can check this

In the workshop there is an upload service that pushes two gigabytes through a basic hosting plan without a server process of its own. That is where the back-end work sits that you usually aren’t allowed to show: checksums, file locks, resumable transfers.

Often goes with this

All services

Whether it’s a specific project or just a question for now, write it down the way you’d tell a colleague. You’ll get a reply from me, not from a mailbox.

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