What makes a backend ready for production?

Definition:

Production readiness means an application can be operated, monitored and recovered under normal load and failure. Working business logic is only one part; configuration, resource limits, startup, shutdown and observability also affect users. A ready service should fail clearly and avoid accepting work it cannot safely complete.

Key points:

• Validate config at startup; store secrets outside source code.

• Add structured logs, request IDs, readiness checks and bounded connection pools.

• On shutdown, stop new work, finish active work within a timeout and close resources.

• Liveness asks whether restarting may help; readiness asks whether this instance should receive new traffic.

Interview point:

• Describe graceful shutdown as stop accepting → drain active work → close resources → exit within a deadline.