Come assumere un/a Backend Engineer
Backend engineers build the systems that power your product — APIs, databases, business logic, and the infrastructure that keeps everything running reliably. Hiring the wrong person here can mean performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, and mounting technical debt. This guide helps you identify and hire engineers who build systems that last.
Cosa cercare
- Solid grasp of data modeling, relational and non-relational databases
- API design experience — RESTful, GraphQL, or RPC, with an understanding of trade-offs
- Understanding of system reliability: error handling, retry logic, idempotency
- Security-conscious mindset: authentication, authorization, data validation, and injection prevention
- Experience with distributed systems or microservices (for larger orgs)
- Ability to write maintainable, observable code with good logging and monitoring
Il processo di assunzione
- 1
Technical screen — fundamentals
Cover databases (indexing, query optimization), API design, and one concurrency or caching concept. 45 minutes.
- 2
Take-home or live coding challenge
A realistic CRUD API with edge cases — auth, validation, error handling. Evaluate code quality and how they handle the unexpected.
- 3
System design interview
Design a simplified version of a real system (URL shortener, notification service). Look for structured thinking and awareness of trade-offs.
- 4
Code review exercise
Give them a snippet with bugs or design issues and ask them to critique it. Reveals standards and communication style.
- 5
Behavioral interview
Focus on reliability, incident response, and working across teams. How do they handle a production incident at 2am?
Consigli per il colloquio
- Ask 'How would you design a rate-limiting system?' — tests understanding of distributed systems and trade-offs
- Ask about a time they introduced a bug in production and how they handled it — look for ownership and learning
- Probe on database choice: 'When would you use a relational DB vs. a document store?'
- Ask about their approach to API versioning and backwards compatibility
- Test for security awareness: 'What are the first three things you check when reviewing a new API endpoint for security?'
Segnali d'allarme
- No experience writing tests or thinks testing is optional
- Can't explain how they've handled failures or degraded performance
- Treats security as an afterthought rather than a design constraint
- Can't discuss trade-offs — always says 'it depends' without being able to reason through the dependencies
- No exposure to monitoring, logging, or observability practices
Intervista candidati Backend Engineer con l'IA al tuo fianco
Ottieni domande di colloquio strutturate suggerite in tempo reale. Concentrati sul candidato.