I often get asked - "How much database knowledge is enough for a backend developer?"
If you're a backend developer looking to learn databases. Learn these 25 topics👇
1. Basic Queries: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
2. Joins: INNER JOIN, LEFT JOIN, RIGHT JOIN, FULL JOIN
3. Indexes: Types, performance impact
4. Normalization & Denormalization: When to use them
5. Transactions: ACID properties, COMMIT, ROLLBACK
6. Stored Procedures & Triggers
7. Query Optimization: EXPLAIN ANALYZE, indexing strategies
8. Sharding & Replication: Scaling databases
9. Partitioning: Horizontal vs. Vertical
10. Locks & Deadlocks: Concurrency control
11. Types of NoSQL Databases: Key-Value (Redis), Document (MongoDB), Column-Family (Cassandra), Graph (Neo4j)
12. Schema Design: Best practices in document-based databases
13. Indexing & Aggregation: Performance tuning in NoSQL
14. CAP Theorem: Trade-offs between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance
15. Eventual Consistency & Strong Consistency
16. Hibernate (Java), JPA
17. Sequelize (Node.js), TypeORM
18. Query performance tuning with ORM
19. Redis vs. Memcached
20. Write-through, Write-back, Write-around Caching
21. Database Query Caching
22. SQL Injection Prevention
23. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
24. Encryption at Rest & In Transit
25. Backup & Disaster Recovery
Please Note :
Master SQL first, then NoSQL.
If working in microservices, understanding distributed databases, caching, and event-driven data flow is crucial.