Go Backend Engineering: The Complete Guide
Master production Go — from error handling and concurrency to API design, testing, and distributed systems.
Fundamentals
Core patterns every Go backend engineer needs.
Go Error Handling: errors.Is, errors.As, Wrapping, and Custom Types
Go error handling: sentinel errors, wrapping, errors.Is/As, custom types, and production patterns that prevent silent failures.
Go Configuration Mastery: Production Patterns with Viper
Production config in Go with Viper: precedence hierarchy, validation, K8s integration, Vault secrets rotation, and drift detection.
Go Dynamic JSON: Parsing Unknown Schemas in Production
Handle unpredictable JSON in Go: map[string]any, json.RawMessage, type switches, and defensive patterns for shifting schemas.
Concurrency & Reliability
Goroutines, channels, and production shutdown patterns.
Go Context in Depth: Cancellation, Timeouts, and Debugging in Production
Master context.Context in Go: cancellation propagation, deadline inheritance, goroutine leak patterns, and debugging with pprof.
Go Worker Pool Pattern: Production-Ready Concurrency Control
Build a production-ready Go worker pool with goroutines and channels. Control concurrency and prevent resource exhaustion.
Go Graceful HTTP Shutdown: Zero-Downtime Production Patterns
Go graceful shutdown: SIGTERM handling, health probe coordination, and Kubernetes drain patterns for zero dropped requests.
Building APIs
Design, security, and communication patterns.
Production-Grade Go API Design: Clean Architecture, Custom Errors, and Middleware That Actually Works
Handler, service, and repository layers. Custom error types. Middleware chains. Health probes. The patterns for Go APIs handling millions of requests.
Building an OAuth2 Authorization Server from Scratch
Understand OAuth2 by building the server side: authorization endpoint, PKCE validation, JWT generation, JWKS endpoint, and token rotation — all in Go.
gRPC and Protobuf: Building Service-to-Service APIs
gRPC and Protobuf: binary serialization, unary and streaming RPCs, Go implementation, and when to choose gRPC over REST.
Distributed Systems & Testing
Event-driven architecture, resilience, and testing at scale.
Event-Driven Microservices in Go: Kafka, Sagas, and the Outbox Pattern
Reliable event-driven Go beyond connecting to Kafka: handling partial failures, duplicates, and distributed transactions safely.
Building Resilient Distributed Systems with Go
Circuit breakers, bulkhead isolation, timeout propagation, and idempotent retries in Go — the patterns for surviving component failures.
Go Testing Best Practices: Table Tests, Mocks, and Race Detection
Production Go testing without frameworks: table-driven tests, interface mocks, httptest, race detection, and integration patterns.
