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CoursesFull Stack Development

Full Stack Development

beginner-advanced

Backend-first full stack: APIs, databases, auth, real-time, and DevOps. Build, ship, and scale complete web applications.

11 modules89 lessons12 projects
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Never written code? You can still start here.

Module 0 opens with 18 lessons of programming from nothing: your first program, variables, loops, functions, reading errors, the terminal, Git and arrays, before any of the Full Stack Development material. No prior coding assumed.

What you'll learn

~128 h guided · about 26 weeks at 5 h/week · +196 h on projects

  • Explain why ChatGPT and Claude generate answers rather than looking them up like a search engine
  • Describe a program as ordinary text saved in a file and read by Python one line at a time
  • Write basic SQL queries to create, read, update, and delete data
  • Set up Prisma in a TypeScript project from scratch
  • Explain the structure and purpose of JSON Web Tokens
  • Explain how the WebSocket handshake upgrades an HTTP connection
  • Design RESTful URIs that follow resource-naming conventions
  • Understand Docker images, containers, and Dockerfiles

Curriculum

0/89 lessons
1

AI Foundations — optional basics (free)

Week 0 · 20 lessons

0/20
1

Beyond the chatbox: what AI assistants really are

2

How the model "thinks" — and why it changes how you ask

3

The capability map: what AI does brilliantly

4

The limits: hallucination, freshness, and what never to trust it with

5

Your first real win: turn a 30-minute task into 3

6

Context is everything: give it what it needs to know

7

Give it a role and a goal

8

Constraints and format: define what "good" looks like

9

Show, don't tell: examples and templates

10

Iterate like a pro: steer, don't restart

11

Documents and reports: summarise, extract, and draft better

12

Spreadsheets and data: Excel formulas, analysis, and charts

13

Presentations: from blank page to a solid deck

14

Long, messy input: transcripts, threads, notes, and screenshots

15

ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini: which to reach for, and when

16

Make smarter decisions: AI as your thinking partner

17

Chaining steps: multi-part tasks done reliably

18

Your prompt library: reusable templates that save hours

19

Staying safe: privacy, accuracy, and company data

20

Capstone: do a real task end-to-end (graded) → your certificate

2

Module 0 — Foundations: JavaScript, the Web & Your Dev Toolkit

Week 0 · 23 lessons

0/23
1

What a program is and how to run your first one

2

Storing values in variables, and why text and numbers behave differently

3

Making decisions with if, else and comparisons

4

Storing many values in a list

5

Looking things up by name with dictionaries

6

Doing something to every item with loops

7

Writing your own functions

8

Reading errors without panic

9

Finding the mistake in your own code

10

Saving your code in a file and running it

11

Importing code other people have written

12

Giving each project its own environment

13

Talking to your computer with the terminal

14

Saving your work with Git

15

Putting your work on GitHub

16

What an array is, and why a list is not enough

17

Picking out pieces: indexing and slicing, including two dimensions

18

Maths on a whole array at once, and where you go next

19

Your Dev Environment: Terminal, Node & npm

20

JavaScript Essentials: Variables, Types & Functions

21

Async JavaScript & JSON

22

How the Web Works: HTTP, Clients, Servers & APIs

23

Git & GitHub for Developers

3

Backend Foundations

Week 1 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

HTTP & REST Principles

2

Node.js & Express Setup

3

Routing & Middleware

4

Request/Response Handling

5

Error Handling Patterns

4

Databases

Week 2 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

SQL & PostgreSQL Basics

2

Schema Design

3

Migrations & Versioning

4

Indexing & Query Optimisation

5

Database Relationships

5

ORMs & Data Access

Week 3 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

Prisma Setup & Queries

2

Type-Safe Database Access

3

Transactions & Relations

4

Seeding & Migrations

5

Drizzle ORM Alternative

6

Auth & Security

Week 4 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

JWT Authentication

2

OAuth & Social Login

3

Session Management

4

Role-Based Access Control

5

OWASP for Full Stack

7

Real-time & Jobs

Week 5 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

WebSockets Fundamentals

2

Pub/Sub with Redis

3

Background Jobs

4

Cron & Scheduled Tasks

5

Event-Driven Architecture

8

APIs & Integrations

Week 6 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

REST API Design

2

GraphQL Basics

3

Webhooks

4

Stripe Payments

5

Email with SendGrid

9

DevOps & Deployment

Week 7 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

Docker for Full Stack

2

CI/CD Pipelines

3

Vercel Deployment

4

Environment Management

5

Monitoring & Logging

10

Scaling & Production

Week 8 · 5 lessons

0/5
1

Caching Strategies

2

Rate Limiting

3

Load Balancing

4

Multi-Tenant Architecture

5

Production Readiness Checklist

11

Testing & Quality Engineering

Week 9 · 6 lessons

0/6
1

The Testing Pyramid in Practice

2

Unit Testing Node Services

3

Integration Testing: Databases and APIs

4

Contract Testing and Schema Safety

5

End-to-End Testing Without Tears

6

CI Quality Gates

Advanced tier

Full Stack Development — Advanced

6 senior modules · 30lessons · capstone & certificate. Upgrade your plan to unlock the advanced tier.

Advanced Database Patterns & Performance

5 lessons

1

Query Optimization & Execution Plans

2

Indexing Strategies: B-Trees, GIN, GiST & Partial Indexes

3

Connection Pooling & Read Replicas

4

Event Sourcing & CQRS

5

Database Sharding & Horizontal Scaling

Distributed Systems & Microservices

5 lessons

1

CAP Theorem & Consistency Models in Practice

2

Event-Driven Architecture & Message Queues

3

Saga Patterns & Distributed Transactions

4

gRPC & Protocol Buffers for Internal Services

5

Service Discovery, Health Checks & Circuit Breakers

Performance Engineering & Observability

5 lessons

1

Frontend Performance: Core Web Vitals & Rendering

2

Caching Strategies: HTTP, CDN, Redis & Application-Level

3

Load Testing & Capacity Planning

4

Structured Logging & Distributed Tracing

5

SLOs, Error Budgets & On-Call Culture

Infrastructure & DevOps

5 lessons

1

Docker in Production: Multi-Stage Builds & Security

2

Kubernetes Fundamentals: Pods, Services & Deployments

3

CI/CD Pipelines: GitHub Actions & Deployment Strategies

4

Infrastructure as Code with Terraform

5

Secrets Management & Cloud Cost Optimization

Security & Reliability Engineering

5 lessons

1

OWASP Top 10: Injection, XSS & CSRF Deep Dives

2

OAuth 2.0 & OpenID Connect Internals

3

Security Headers, CSP & Supply Chain Security

4

Chaos Engineering & Resilience Testing

5

Incident Response & Blameless Post-Mortems

System Design & Architecture

5 lessons

1

System Design Fundamentals: Load Balancers & Reverse Proxies

2

Designing a URL Shortener & Rate Limiter

3

Real-Time Notification & Chat Systems at Scale

4

Payment Processing & Financial System Design

5

Capstone: End-to-End Production System Design

What you'll build

12 projects · ~196 h · each graded against a rubric

  1. REST API with CRUD

    beginner · ~8 h

    Node.jsExpressPostgreSQL

  2. Auth System (JWT + OAuth)

    beginner · ~10 h

    Node.jsJWTOAuthSupabase

  3. Blog Platform with CMS

    beginner · ~12 h

    Next.jsSupabaseMarkdown

  4. Real-time Chat App

    intermediate · ~14 h

    Next.jsWebSocketsRedis

  5. E-commerce Store

    intermediate · ~18 h

    Next.jsStripeSupabase

  6. File Storage Service

    intermediate · ~12 h

    Node.jsS3Express

  7. Social Feed with Notifications

    intermediate · ~16 h

    Next.jsSupabaseRealtime

  8. Multi-tenant SaaS

    intermediate · ~18 h

    Next.jsSupabaseRLS

  9. Analytics Dashboard

    advanced · ~18 h

    Next.jsD3.jsPostgreSQL

  10. Microservices API Gateway

    advanced · ~20 h

    Node.jsDockerRedisRabbitMQ

  11. Mobile App (React Native)

    advanced · ~20 h

    React NativeExpoSupabase

  12. Production SaaS (Capstone)

    advanced · ~30 h

    Next.jsSupabaseStripeDocker

What we track

Everything below is graded by Nova and kept on your record: the thing an employer can open, run and verify.

Get started

Take the free assessment to see your skill level and get a personalised learning plan.

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Featured projects

REST API with CRUD

Node.jsExpress

Auth System (JWT + OAuth)

Node.jsJWT

Blog Platform with CMS

Next.jsSupabase

About

11 modules, 89 lessons
~128 hours of guided learning
12 portfolio projects (~196h)
AI-graded exercises

Full Stack Development

20 questions · ~30 minutes

Take the assessment →

The people behind this track

Nova grades every submission; these are the humans who wrote the brief and stand behind it.

Nikhil De Silva

Founder, Square1 Ai

Built Square1 Ai to close the gap between knowing and doing: every lesson ends in work that gets graded, and every student has someone in their corner.