---
esco_uri: http://data.europa.eu/esco/skill/f84a433f-34f1-4083-b0a3-24802623509c
esco_label: "web services"
relation: essential
onet_soc: 15-1252.00
source: stackexchange
confidence: high
qa_count: 2
generator: gemma3:27b (prompt-designed and spot-checked by Claude)
generated: 2026-07-10
---

# web services — Software Engineer

As a Software Engineer, 'web services' isn’t just *knowing* about SOAP or REST; it's being able to design, build, consume, and troubleshoot them daily. You'll likely spend time defining API contracts (often using OpenAPI/Swagger), implementing service logic – potentially in Node.js, Python, Java, or Go – and ensuring scalability & reliability. A big part of the job is understanding how to *decouple* systems; you’re not just fetching data, you’re building interfaces that allow different parts of an application (or entirely separate applications) to interact without being tightly bound to each other's internal details. Think GraphQL as a way to expose only what clients need, avoiding over-fetching and simplifying changes.

## Praxiswissen (Stack Exchange, CC-BY-SA 4.0)

**The asker questions why GraphQL is favored over simply sending SQL queries directly in HTTP requests, pointing out the apparent similarity in complexity between the two approaches.**

The core benefit of abstractions like GraphQL (or even REST) lies in decoupling the client from the underlying data storage. Directly exposing SQL ties clients to a specific database schema and makes it difficult to implement features like security layers, caching, or combining data from multiple sources. While caching SQL queries seems appealing, accurately normalizing and identifying equivalent queries for effective caching is surprisingly complex due to variations in formatting and query structure.

*Source: [Why not use SQL instead of GraphQL?](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/389900) — answer by Andy, CC-BY-SA 4.0*

**The questioner struggles to understand the necessity of separate databases in a microservice architecture, believing shared databases with web services can achieve similar isolation benefits at lower cost.**

While independent databases are often recommended for microservices to enforce clear ownership and prevent conflicts, they aren't strictly required. The choice between shared or dedicated databases is a trade-off; shared databases offer simplicity but risk data contention, while separate databases increase complexity but improve autonomy. Ultimately, the best approach depends on an organization’s specific needs and priorities, as there are no universal rules for microservice implementation.

*Source: [If a microservice architecture needs a separate database per microservice then i](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/379685) — answer by Dan Wilson, CC-BY-SA 4.0*

## Weitere Anreicherung

Stage-2 source for future practitioner grounding: arXiv cs.SE (software-engineering preprints).
