What’s the Best Way to Structure a Back-End Project from Scratch?

It's good that you want to model before coding. In my experience, you should start by identifying your core entities—the things you’ll create and manipulate. List those out along with the flows you want to support. Once you have that, draw it out! Creating topo and flow diagrams can help clarify what you're building.

Then, kick off with the database: create the infrastructure, write your data models, and set up migrations. After that, focus on your API: create the necessary endpoints and the core logic for your entities. From there, just keep iterating and enhancing things based on what you've learned during your testing phases.

I’m not into formal modeling tools either. I prefer to sketch out my system interactions on paper. Once I feel good about the design, I start building it piece by piece. Just see what works and adapt as necessary. If something feels off, I make changes immediately.

The way I see it, it all depends on the scope of your project. If you’re looking for minimalism, starting with a lightweight framework like Flask or Express.js is a great idea. You can begin with the simplest structure and let it grow as your features get more complex.

Sometimes, I feel it's a bit too deterministic to say that you can only progress linearly from coder to architect. Some folks develop their architectural skills really early by taking on side projects or learning about system design independently. You don’t have to wait for the perfect experience to grow! What matters is your mindset as you tackle junior roles.

You're definitely on the right path, thinking things through before launching into coding! Here’s a step-by-step flow I follow:

1. Start with your data model. Think about the key nouns in your project—like users and projects—and how they relate to each other.

2. Visualize your schema. Using a tool like ChartDB can make this process simpler; it helps you create an ER diagram easily.

3. Design your API contracts from the start. Even if they're rough sketches, they guide your backend logic.

4. Keep your project folders organized. I like using separate folders for API, services, models, utils, and tests.

5. Document your decisions as you go, so future you knows what you were thinking!