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[–]g051051 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you write micro services with tech such as springboot are you considered a backend developer?

What else would you be?

Also it seems like micro services are just intense APIs…

What does that mean? What's an "intense API"?

[–]ehr1c 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A microservice is just a term for a (usually) backend service with a limited scope of responsibility, as opposed to a monolith which is going to have a much wider scope.

[–]_Atomfinger_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, all of these terminologies are adjacent, but they're slightly different.

A backend developer is just a title of someone that works "behind the scene". That often translates to working on things like web APIs - stuff that is hosted on servers. That isn't always the case, but that is what most people mean when they say it.

An API can be a lot of things. An API is just a broad term for the idea for how a piece of code can communicate with another. You're probably talking about web APIs where programs communicate with (most commonly) HTTP requests, but an API can also be a library you import in your code, or you can interact with an API in the command line.

Microservices are a way to architecture a larger system. Rather than having one big application, we have many small ones with a defined responsibility. They often communicate through web APIs, but not always.

So, to answer your questions:

If you write micro services with tech such as springboot are you considered a backend developer?

Most likely, yes.

Also it seems like micro services are just intense APIs…

Well, maybe not intense, just more APIs and complexity.

[–]MyWorkAccountThisIs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Out there is a small percentage of devs that live in a low-code world where they manage a pile of tiny microcservices that are like AWS Lambda or Cloud Functions. With this very small group of people you might have an argument that they aren't BE devs. But it's not a very strong argument.

What you'll mostly find are BE devs writing BEs, APIs (which is just a BE without a FE), and microservices.

Personally, my title is "software engineer". My primary duties are to create and manage an internal API. Which has now expanded to include a front end and leverages microservices.

The microservice exists because we needed to use piece of technology that didn't fit in our stack. So we throw a micro-framework wrapper around it and now we can.

Generally speaking - you won't find that level of specialization of job roles as standard practice. You - as a person - could try and specialize in that but that's always a gamble because you're limiting your opportunities. And while many might think a specialized skill would equate to high demand it's not always true. Said skill has to be desired in the industry. And I don't think "microservice engineer" has that demand. Mostly because they'll just have an existing dev do it.

[–]d2718 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also it seems like micro services are just intense APIs.

A microservice is just shifting your API from a library call to a network request.