When I was younger I wanted to join a football team. I had visions of scoring the winning goal and being the hero. Unfortunately I turned up with a pair of goalkeeper gloves, one of the others on the team decided I must be a goalkeeper then. And that’s the position I played for many years, and I loved it.

Now I’ve been a backend developer for many many yeas and I love that as well. For me there are some obvious parallels between the two roles.

Even a small mistake is a big mistake #

I clearly remember charging out of goal to meet the incoming ball and blast back down the pitch to start an attack. Instead it bounced higher than I anticipated and went over my head. For any other player on the pitch and this wouldn’t have mattered but for me it meant we conceded a goal and were now losing.

As a backend developer a tiny mistake such as a missing semi colon can bring a whole site down. Compare that to front end where missing out whole closing tags can often be rectified by the browser. Those front end developers don’t know how easy they have it, is that why we make them learn a million different JavaScript frameworks and throw in inconsistent box models in browsers.

Leading from the back #

One of my favourite parts of football was corners. I’m very average height but I can jump a lot higher than most people. I used to love to come running out, jumping through the air with a loud shout and claiming the ball. It let everyone in the team know I was there and taking care of my job.

Providing a solid back end for others in your team is critical to building successful websites and applications. From mapping out database architecture to providing valuable end points, your work is what feeds the output and allows for the rich content we have come to expect today.

I always evangelise the value of having a good base to build on. If we can have the data in a good format to begin with then pulling it out again in desired formats and combinations becomes a lot simpler. The phrase “S**t in, s**t out” is very appropriate here.

Embrace your personality type #

Every year when we ordered a new team kit I was handed the brochure to make my choice. I flicked through and stopped on the one that was the brightest and loudest. I’ve heard many others, including professionals, talk about goalkeepers having a certain personality type and I could definitely relate.

I think back end developers also have a clear personality type. We are very analytical and love a problem. There are plenty of times I see my colleagues design work and think “I wish I had the design eye they have”, but I don’t, and I encourage you to embrace your place in web development that is such a wonderful ecosystem of so many different types of people.

A closing note #

After the ball bouncing over my head incident I cried on the way home. In my first developer role I deleted a colleagues database they’d spent all morning crafting. I didn’t cry but did feel very very bad and spent the rest of the day helping them restore it. Individual mistakes happen but with a good team around you those mistakes will become tiny blips.