{"slug": "my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer", "title": "My Journey to Become a Better Backend Engineer", "summary": "A backend engineer realized their growth was blocked and decided to reduce reliance on AI tools. They are building a stock exchange engine and a collaborative music production system to challenge themselves and improve their skills.", "body_md": "Hi everyone! this is my first post here on dev.\n\nAbout 4 days ago I realized I'm stuck as a mid-level backend engineer, and honestly, not even a good one.\n\nSome background: I have a CS degree and started working as a software engineer in 2022. I spent a year and a half at a financial company, then moved to one in the tourism industry, and now I work at a client-based company doing multiple projects.\n\nFor a while I've felt like my growth here is blocked, so I started looking for another job. That search made me realize something uncomfortable: I've been relying on AI way too much. So now I'm trying to cut down on AI for my tasks, and I've decided to build a couple of projects that'll actually challenge me and help me learn.\n\nI've got two projects in mind: a stock exchange engine and a collaborative music production system. I'll share how it goes, including the parts I get wrong!\n\n*(English isn't my first language, so I used AI to help polish the wording. The story and the projects are all mine.)*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/hayanj/my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer-1-4lnk", "published_at": "2026-07-12 15:49:08+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-12 16:14:40.362209+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools"], "entities": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-journey-to-become-a-better-backend-engineer.jsonld"}}