When you pay for a bundle with mobile money, check a school result online or order food through an app, a lot happens that you never see. A phone sends a message to a computer somewhere, that computer looks something up, saves a record and sends an answer back. That hidden computer is a server, and the code running on it is the backend. Backend developers build and look after that part.
Ghanaian fintechs, telcos, banks, logistics startups and software agencies all need people who can do this work, and so do remote teams that hire across Africa. When you read their job adverts, a few basics appear again and again, even for junior roles. This first section gives you those basics before you write a single API.
What this section covers
- Clients, servers and HTTP. Every app you build later is a conversation between a client (a phone, a browser, another server) and your server. HTTP is the language of that conversation. If you understand requests, responses, status codes and headers, debugging becomes much easier.
- The command line. Most servers run Linux and have no screen. You talk to them by typing commands. The same skill lets you run your own code, install tools and read logs.
- Git and GitHub. Teams track every change to their code with Git, and share it on platforms such as GitHub. Teams expect you to use it from your first day, and your GitHub profile becomes part of your CV.