This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Preeti yadav
As a frontend developer, I thought backend was just “sending data to the frontend.” Oh, how naive I was. 
Recently, I decided to level up and dive into NestJS + Prisma for backend development. Here’s a hilarious (and slightly painful) recap of my journey.
Phase 1: “How Hard Can It Be?”
Me, confidently installing NestJS:
npm i -g @nestjs/cli
nest new my-backend
Feels good. Feels… easy. 
Then I opened the main.ts file and saw decorators, modules, controllers, and services.
Frontend Me: “Where’s the App.js and why does everything look so… serious?” 
Phase 2: Prisma, Why You Betray Me?
Prisma ORM? Sounds fancy.
Me: “Okay, let’s just create a simple user model.”
model User {
id String @id @default(uuid())
name String
email String @unique
}
Then I tried to migrate the database:
npx prisma migrate dev --name init
BOOM. ERROR.
Prisma: “You must define a database URL.”
Me: “Bro, I thought we were friends?” 
Phase 3: Authentication – The Final Boss
Frontend: “Just send a token, bro.”
Backend: “Hash passwords, verify JWTs, handle refresh tokens, protect routes, configure CORS…”
Me: “I just wanted to build a to-do app .”
After 5 hours of debugging, I finally logged in successfully… only to realize I forgot to hash the password before saving it. Now, passwords are stored in plain text. Hacker’s dream.
Phase 4: When It Finally Works
After countless YouTube tutorials and Stack Overflow sacrifices, I finally got my API running! 
Tested it with Postman, saw a 200 OK, and felt like a backend GOD.
Final Thoughts: Should You Try Backend?
If you enjoy suffering.
If you want to feel like a hacker while writing SQL queries.
If you want to flex that you know “full-stack.”
On a serious note, learning backend completes your dev skills and makes you appreciate the work backend engineers do. Would I do it again? 100%. But I’ll always respect my frontend roots. 
Your Turn!
Frontend devs, have you ever tried backend? How did it go? Let’s share our pain (and wins) in the comments! 
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Preeti yadav