approach
How I work.
Six stages a backend project goes through, in order, and what exists at the end of each one.
The sequence holds whether it is an airline’s operations platform or my own app on a phone. Only the size of each step changes.
Understand the work before the endpoints
you end up with the workflow written down as it is actually performed, not as a feature list
Model the data
you end up with a schema, and the queries it will have to answer
Agree the contract
you end up with endpoints agreed with the developers who will call them
Build the boring version
you end up with a working service carrying the patterns it needed and no others
Measure, then make it fast
you end up with the same endpoints, with before and after figures
Ship it, then stay on it
you end up with a deployed service, still owned by the person who wrote it