I’ve seen way too many junior developers fall in love with NoSQL databases to recommend them as a starting point. NoSQL is a niche tool whereas relational databases will be the bread and butter in a vast majority of cases. Many junior devs try to use NoSQL for everything and then fuck it all up.

Postgres even supports using NoSQL concepts with JSONB so there’s no reason not to start with it.

I’m sure I’ll get downvoted since HN has been very hostile to real talk lately but I don’t care.

Yes, but the current version of the roadmap makes it seem like NoSQL databases are way more important than they are (IMHO). I would say a junior backend developer needs to know about web servers, REST, AuthN/AuthZ and even Docker way before they need to know about NoSQL.

I'm interested as to why junior developers even need to learn Docker. I'd say learning Docker would be a "nice-to-have," but you can go years, or even forever, without having to deal with it, or even having a need for it. I'm not saying learning Docker is fruitless, just that Junior Developers might not get enough out of learning Docker to put it in good use.

As for NoSQL. I'd say that definitely should be on the roadmap. I've assumed that they've already learned RDBMS, but knowing when to use the two is essential. Most companies now are working with data lakes and unstructured data (e.g. user and session data). Knowing how to get around that flexibility, how to structure your business logic and models, and what tool to pick (i.e. Redis for caching), etc. goes alongside NoSQL knowledge.

Using docker force you to declare step by step what you need to build/use your code. If you combine that with good CI/CD, that easier to provides help to the junior developer if you can quickly reproduce the environment.

I had a bad experience with a project that I was assigned to "help". The build steps documented used incompatible lib version. It's hard to help if you can't even build/run their codes.