How NestJS Changed the Way I Build Backends
A few weeks ago, I was given an interview task to build a backend. I didn’t get the role — they wanted someone with more experience — but that assignment completely changed the way I build backend systems. Until then, I mostly used Express.js . It’s flexible and fast, but as projects grow, the code usually turns into a pile of routes, middlewares, and functions tightly coupled together. Scaling that kind of codebase is painful. During that task, I discovered NestJS — a framework built on top of Express. On the surface, it might look like a wrapper. But once I built my community-backend project with it, I realized NestJS is really about architecture . Express.js vs NestJS: A Quick Example Express.js (typical route) // routes/user.js const express = require("express"); const router = express.Router(); const db = require("../db"); router.post("/users", async (req, res) => { const { name, email } = req.body; if (!email) return res.status(400).s...