[anon2020dot00]

There is front-end and back-end. I've been in the back-end for more than a decade already and haven't touched front-end once. Back-end is more of processing and preparing the data which will be presented in the front-end.

Also, thanks for recommending https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.00.1-x/1T2014/course/ in one of your comments; it looks quite interesting.

In this day and age, there is tons of data being generated in institutions like stock trading data for a stock brokerage company or call record data for a telecom company. Usually these data needs to be parsed, summarized or analysed etc.. so there is a lot of back-end work that occurs.

Back-end processing is usually either OLTP (online transaction processing) or OLAP (online analytical processing). With OLTP, it is about the software performing some repetitive task that supports a business function. For example, with Amazon shopping; the software needs to record the order, reduce available inventory of the product, etc..

With OLAP, there is usually some analysis on the data that needs to be generated like a report showing Amazon orders that match a certain condition.