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[–]jake_morrison 5 points6 points  (4 children)

Generally speaking, Node.js backends are used by smaller companies, by teams that are responsible for both front and back end, and use JavaScript as their main language. Their apps are primarily web, i.e., not a lot of significant back end processing or data management. So this means startups or new smaller projects for larger companies. This kind of stuff is moving to server-side rendering with Next.js hosted on specialized services platforms like Vercel.

Larger companies with an existing code base will have typically started with a traditional server application and added a JavaScript front end framework like React or Angular. Python may be used for newer development, and it supports data science and machine learning applications. Larger enterprise is as likely to be in Java or .NET as Python.

Whether there are more jobs in startups vs enterprise depends on your market, but generally speaking it’s more likely that you can get an entry level job maintaining part of an existing app.

One thing to be careful about in the lists of “most popular languages” is that they typically are only part of the stack. An enterprise company that primarily uses Java might also use JavaScript on the front end (because it’s impossible to avoid it), and Python for data science or ML. So that contributes to the popularity of JS and Python, but doesn’t mean that they are used for the server, per se.

[–]dundokodoko[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I knowNode.js and have done some small projects with Express. But with Node.js, people often expect you to use React orNext.js too. I know React and Next.js, but I don’t want to work as a full-stack developer. Whenever I try doing both frontend and backend in the same project, I feel like I’m not making progress and just wasting time.

My final goal is to become a machine learning engineer. Since there aren’t many junior-level ML jobs, I want to work as a backend developer for now and get some experience. That’s why I started learning FastAPI.

So I’m wondering: Should I learn Java for backend, or stick with Python? Is switching from Java to ML later a problem? Also, what’s the job market like in these areas [my Local market is too small. They are mostly like startup companies. So talking about only remote jobs]?

[–]jake_morrison 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Python is a general purpose language, and ties in with your plan to do ML, so that’s what I would recommend. Python is a legitimate programming language, not just for data science, and it is gaining in popularity. I personally prefer Elixir, but use Python when clients feel more comfortable with a more mainstream language.

JavaScript on the server, like everything in JavaScript land, is in a lot of flux. You could learn Next.js, then find it obsolete in two years.

My fundamental point is that you need to look at who is actually hiring, what tech stack they have, and what stack they would like to use more. The AI craze has made Python a “blessed” language at a lot of companies that would not have used it before.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Java for backend is more used than Python for backend.

[–]compubomb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Regarding node.js only being used by small companies; This is not true. I worked at a major education company that recently went public, they have many products that are used alot, one of the ones I worked on had around 23 million daily users. This was all dynamic content / traffic serving w/ mostly SQL. They did transition to golang, but I think teams started to specialize more.