Can anyone recommend books on backend that are both more exhaustive and more specific than Designing Data-Intensive Applications (which seemed more like a high-level description of storage options)?

If you're looking for books in databases, I'd recommend flipping through Designing Data-Intensive Applications and picking a topic that interests you and diving into the references. It's meant to be a high level overview. A lot of the value in the book is the references and recommended readings Kleppmann suggests in each chapter.

other than that you would have to be more specific on what you're looking to learn.

jstx1

There's more to backend development than just databases. Imagine that someone very naively said to you "I know how to program, I've never done any backend development and I want to work as a backend developer in the future. I'm looking for Backend: The Book".

willmeyers

Ah sorry about that. I think my comment came off as a bit rude after reading it back to myself. Backend development means so much nowadays I think it would be hard for someone to publish a general book on it. But maybe someone else has found something that I'm unaware of. I think you'll have the best luck collecting some general resources about different subjects. Here's some resources that I recommend flipping through.

- Any up to date book on the programming language of your choice

- Any up to date online course of the programming language of your choice

- https://hpbn.co/ (networking)

- Build APIs You Won't Hate (api design)

- https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer (system design)

- API Design Patterns by Geewax (somewhat opinionated, but overall good resource for api design)