Technical Terms

You might find these in job descriptions or resumes for software engineering related roles.

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Some technical terms you might find in job descriptions or resumes for software engineering positions | www.iteachrecruiters.com/tech-terms

.NET

platform

.NET refers to Microsoft's programming platform. This could include C#.NET, VB.NET, or ASP.NET but generally hiring managers mention this to let people know they are a Microsoft shop. Developers tend to be either all in on .NET, Microsoft, and Windows, or want nothing to do with it and stick to other languages such as Java.

12 Factor App

engineering practice

A practice of structuring applications so that they work well in cloud environments. Created by the co-founder of the cloud hosting company Heroku. A very useful practice to follow when "dockerizing" (making compatible with Docker) an application.

More info
Related: Docker

API

technology

API - Application Programming Interface. Simply put, APIs are systems of communications for computers. You make an API when you want one computer to talk to another computer.

More info

ASP

platform

ASP (Active Server Pages) is a Microsoft product used to build web applications in. It is Microsoft's Server Side Scripting engine. Make sure you find out if this is ASP Classic (very old), or ASP.NET, which replaced it in 2002.

AWS

platform

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a cloud platform for application deployment, hosting, and various services such as Email, DNS, and hosted Databases. Seeing this on a resume can mean anything from passing familiarity with AWS to deep expert knowledge.

Related: S3 DynamoDB Lambda

Agile

methodology

Agile is methodology for building software. Most large and modern companies are using Agile to build software. It can be described as using adaptive planning and encouraging rapid flexible response to change.

More info

Android

os

Android is an open source operating system used for phones written in Java and owned by Google. Android code can be developed on any OS (Mac, Windows, Linux). Android applications are often written in Java, although the new default Android Studio language is Kotlin.

Related: Java

Angular

library

Angular is a JavaScript web framework developed by Google employees. It allows building single page applications and has built in features for handling routing, calling apis and handling forms. Can be thought of as an alternative to building sites in React.

Related: JavaScript

Ansible

automation tool

Ansible is an automation tool that allows you to connect to infrastructure and run automation scripts. For example, it can be used for automating creation of new servers, upgrades, and maintenance

More info

Apache

web server

Apache is best known as a web server, often used with PHP. But Apache is also a large foundation known for hosting and supporting hundreds of open source projects. So you might see "Apache Kafka", which just means Kafka is managed by the Apache Foundation.

Related: Nginx

Apex

language

Apex is a proprietary programming language created by Salesforce. It is similar to Java and C#.NET

More info
Related: salesforce java C#

Apollo

library

Apollo is a library that makes it easier to use GrapqhQL. It has a frontend component and a backend component, and is becoming very popular for use with React.

Related: javascript graphql

Appium

application

Automation for mobile apps, used by software testers. You can write the tests in a couple of different languages

ArangoDB

database

A graph database that has document storage format similar to MongoDB. Commonly used with Node.js.

Related: neo4j graph database

Axios

library

Axios is a library used for making HTTP requests from Node.js or client side JavaScript. Commonly used with REST services.

Related: javascript REST

Azure

platform

Azure is a cloud platform owned by Microsoft. Used to deploy and host software. It is in many ways the Microsoft equivalent to Amazon's AWS.

Related: AWS GCP

Babel

library

A library used to "transpile" (think of this like compile/transform) JavaScript and other client side code. Commonly used with React to transform JSX and other advanced JavaScript features to browser compatible vanilla JS.

Related: React

Bash

language

Bash is a shell language, or command language that is commonly used with Linux and OSX. When you open a terminal type into it on linux you are probably using Bash. Large programs can be written in Bash but it is generally thought of a scripting language.

More info
Related: linux

Blockchain

technology

Blockchains are essentially immutable databases (meaning they can't change existing data, only be updated) that store every change in a way that can't easily be tampered with. This lends itself to being used in applications where data integrity is paramount. The recent blockchain revolution was kicked off by Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventer of Bitcoin who cobbled together several existing cryptography technologies in a novel way to create the first decentralized blockchain. Blockchains are the base layer of computing platforms such as Ethereum and Solana.

Related: database ethereum solana cryptocurrency

Bootstrap

library

A library of CSS styles and design components for UI work. Often used to rapidly build UIs without a designer. Also called "Twitter Bootstrap", was originally built by an intern at Twitter.

Related: CSS

Brownfield

software engineering

Refers to a project where you might be building something new, but it is in the context of older infrastructure and applications. This probably means actively developing, transitioning or maintaining legacy code while working on the new project.

More info
Related: greenfield

C#

language

C#.Net is a C-Style programming language that was developed by Microsoft for use with their .NET Framework platform. It is commonly used to develop server side applications and games.

C++

language

C++ is an Object Oriented programming language based on the "C" language. It used often in high performance applications and it requires programmers to handle memory management.

CCPA

regulation

California Consumer Privacy Act - enacted in 2018, creates new consumer rights relating to the access to, deletion of, and sharing of personal information that is collected by businesses.

CICD

system

CI/CD tools refer to "Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery", which is a class of tools that helps automate testing and deployment of applications. Jenkins, TeamCity, Circle CI, or Gitlab can all be used in a CI/CD capacity

Related: Jenkins Gitlab

CMS

application

CMS (Content Management System) is a term for any application that allows end users to store and edit content for display. For example a blogging platform, or a website like Wix or Squarespace. Almost every experienced developer has worked on a CMS at one point and never wants to do it again.

CRM

application

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications are used to track customer interactions and manage sales processes.

CSS

language

CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) is a language that defines what web pages look and feel like. The language has a reputation for being confusing and finicky. Ideally frontend developers should be expert level at CSS to build complex user interfaces. Backend developers often run kicking and screaming away from CSS as fast as humanly possible.

Related: JavaScript html

Cache

engineering practice

Cache or Caching is a practice used in application infrastructure where certain pieces of frequently accessed information are made more quickly and easily available than something that may be more expensive to connect to, like a database. For example a "Redis" (a cache server) instance will be used to store the most frequently accessed recipes on a recipe database website, which reduced load on the database.

Related: Redis Memcached Cache

CakePHP

framework

A backend web development framework written in PHP.

Related: PHP Laravel

Cassandra

database

A wide-column store database used in specialized applications that require high write speeds.

Cognito

system

Sign in, Sign up, permissions and user account creation as a service for applications running on AWS.

Related: AWS

Cold Fusion

platform

Cold Fusion is a closed source rapid application development platform owned by Adobe. It has it's own programming language and many advanced features. Does not have a good reputation with most serious software engineers.

Cucumber

library

A BDD (behavior driven development) testing tool often used on Java projects.

Cypress

library

A client side testing framework - tests anything that runs in a browser. This is a paid product based on open source libraries.

Related: react JavaScript

DNS

system

DNS - Domain Name System. A fundamental system that helps the internet to work by mapping IP addresses to domain names, among other features. Usually mentioned in roles that will have some heavy networking component.

Datadog

monitoring system

Datadog is monitoring software you can install to monitor logs and errors in your application.

DeFi

technology

Decentralized Finance is a term for applications built on top of blockchains. Applications like Compound, Uniswap and Ave which are all built on top of Ethereum are a few examples.

Related: Ethereum blockchain

DevOps

engineering practice

A set of practices combining software development and operations. A lot of DevOps focuses around automating processes and automation tools involving CI/CD and infrastructure.

More info
Related: CICD Terraform Ansible

Django

Framework

A backend web framework for Python. Similar in a lot of ways to Ruby on Rails but it's written in Python.

Related: Python

Docker

container

Docker is a containerization system used to make it easy to deploy software applications. Docker has become very popular because it makes it easy to reliably deploy production code.

DynamoDB

database

Amazon's NoSQL offering, it can store data as Key-Value or Document structure similar to MongoDB.

Related: MongoDB

ECS

system

Elastic Container Service - a product by AWS that is similar in nature to Kubernetes in that it is used to manage applications deployed as Docker containers (but it is way easier to get set up and running).

Related: Kubernetes AWS

EKS

system

AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service - a product by AWS that is for running managed Kubernetes clusters.

Related: Kubernetes AWS

ERP

application

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications are used to manage business processes. This can include accounting, production, human resources. There are many large ERP systems and developers are often hired to customize them for companies.

More info

ES6

language

ES6 (or EcmaScript 6) was an updated to JavaScript in 2015. Many new features for JavaScript were released for this and sometimes people put this on resumes to indicate they are familiar with "new javascript" syntax.

Related: JavaScript

ETL

engineering practice

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) - is the general procedure of copying data from one or more sources into a destination system which represents the data differently from the source(s) or in a different context than the source(s). The ETL process became a popular concept in the 1970s and is often used in data warehousing. People usually mention this in Big Data job descriptions.

More info

ElastiCache

system

AWS Product. Managed Redis and Memcached instances in Amazon's cloud. This is used as a cache layer for applications.

Related: AWS Redis Memcached Cache

ElasticSearch

database

ElasticSearch is a database that stores document formatted records that are indexed and optimized for search. Used to build search engines, it has an advanced and flexible query language.

Electron

framework

Electron is a framework for building desktop applications using web development languages (Node.js + HTML,CSS and JavaScript) with an embedded browser runtime.

Related: Node

Emotion

library

Emotion is a library designed for writing css styles with JavaScript. Similar to "styled components" in the way that it works. Commonly used with React projects.

Related: react css

Enzyme

library

A library to help test React components.

Related: jest react

Eslint

library

A library used to "lint" JavaScript code. In static languages the compiler can find errors in the code, while in dynamic languages like JavaScript people often use a linter to detect errors. Most JavaScript projects employ some kind of linter.

Related: React

Ethereum

technology

Ethereum is a network for building decentralized applications built on top of a blockchain. The associated cryptocurrency which is used to pay for using these applications is called "Ether" or "Eth".

Related: blockchain cryptocurrency defi solidity

Expo

platform

A tool for building cross-platform applications with React Native.

Related: ReactNative

Express

framework

Express is a server side javascript framework written for Node.js, used often to build REST APIs.

Related: javascript node

Flask

Framework

A backend web framework for Python. Modeled off of the backend web framework for Ruby called Sinatra.

Related: Python

GCP

platform

GCP (Google Cloud Platform) is a cloud platform owned by Google. Used to deploy and host software.

Related: AWS Azure

GDPR

regulation

General Data Protection Regulation - A European law on data privacy and storage.

Gatsby

framework

A framework for generating fast static websites using React and GraphQL.

Related: JavaScript React

Git

version control

Git is a version control system. It allows developers to store and share code. It is often used with Github (or other tools) to collaborate with other developers. Git is basically a must-have skill for modern software engineering.

Gitlab

CI system

Gitlab makes git hosting software similar to Github, but is becoming more well known for it's CI/CD capabilities (similar to Jenkins).

Golang

language

GO is a general purpose programming language created by Google meant to be similar to Java. It is commonly used for low-level infrastructure programming. Docker and Kubernetes are written in Go.

Related: Docker Kubernetes

Gradle

build system

Gradle is a dependency management and build system used for Groovy and Java applications. It is often used with Spring applications and Android development.

Related: android spring Maven

Graph Database

database

Graph Databases are a special type of database that represents and allows querying on data in terms of a graph (as in the computer science term "graph").

Related: arangoDB neo4j

GraphQL

protocol

GraphQL is protocol for writing APIs, like REST. GraphQL requires a server side component that defines a spec and a client side component where you write GraphQL queries against the spec to get back data.

More info
Related: javascript

Greenfield

software engineering

Refers to a project with no existing code or possibly infrastructure constraints. Usually this type of work is highly sought after by developers because it allows creative freedom to architect an application however you want.

More info
Related: brownfield

Groovy

language

Groovy is a server side language that runs on the JVM. Groovy developers also typically know Java and the syntax is very similar. Particularly popular in the twin cities area.

Related: Java JVM

HDFS

analytics

HDFS - Hadoop Distributed File System. A foundation of Hadoop which allows storage of large amounts of data across many servers.

Related: Hadoop

HIPAA

regulation

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act - In terms of software development this defines some data security requirements companies must comply with when dealing with patient healthcare data. Software engineers in these industries need to understand these security requirements when building software systems.

HTML

language

HTML is markup language used to build web pages. It defines the structure and content of a web page.

HTML5

language

HTML5 is a collection of technologies that update the HTML spec. This includes features like geolocation and Canvas. When people note this on their resume is typically to indicate that they are up to date with new frontend web development technology.

More info
Related: JavaScript

HTTP

protocol

HTTP or Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the technology that underpins the internet. It defines the protocol for how to transmit and consume web pages.

More info

Hadoop

analytics

Apache Hadoop is a set of tools for cluster computing and big data. It includes HDFS - a distributed file system, Yarn - a platform for managing resources, and MapReduce a tool for large scale data processing.

Related: HDFS MapReduce

Hibernate

library

One of the original ORMs. Was at one point the most popular ORM for Java. Can be used with SQL databases like MySQL, Oracle, and more.

Related: java orm

Hypervisor

application

A hypervisor is a type of operating system meant to run on a 'bare metal server' and designed to run other virtualized operating systems inside of it. VMWare is an example of a hypervisor.

IAM

system

AWS Identity and Access Management. This is how AWS manages permissions for their services, developers working with AWS should have an understanding of IAM.

Related: AWS

ImmerJS

library

A library to handle immutable state in JavaScript - commonly used with React.

Related: react redux

J2EE

language

Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), currently rebranded as Jakarta EE. This is a set of specifications for building enterprise Java applications - when somebody puts J2EE on their resume they mean they know these specific sets of features.

Related: Java

JIRA

application

An application used to manage workflows, commonly used for Agile development.

JSON

language

JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, it is a data interchange format like XML. It can be used to store information (like in MongoDB), or to transfer information over a protocol like HTTP.

More info
Related: javascript

JSX

language

JSX is an HTML like syntax used in React to lay out structures. It describes "what the UI should look like".

More info
Related: React

JVM

platform

The JVM (Java Virtual Machine) can be thought of as a platform for running Java applications that other languages can use to target. The JVM runs something called "java bytecode" which is a common set of instructions for the JVM. Other languages like Groovy, Scale, and Clojure use the JVM.

Java

language

Extremely popular language for developing enterprise web services (backend application servers). Java is a statically typed language that enforces strict OOP (Object Oriented Programming) syntax. Often taught in schools. Java runs on the JVM which you can think of as a common runtime which other programming languages (like Groovy) use.

Related: JVM tomcat

JavaScript

language

JavaScript is the main programming language of the web. Created in 1995 for the netscape browser, every modern browser now runs JavaScript. JavaScript is a crucial skill for all web developers and it is the foundation of many new technologies like React, Angular, and Vue.

More info
Related: es6 node typescript

Jenkins

CI system

Jenkins is a CI (continuous integration) system. It can be used to automating running of tests to ensure code quality and is commonly used to build tasks which can perform deployments.

Jest

library

A very popular testing library commonly used React applications. Often coupled with Enzyme to help test react components. Can also be used for testing in Node.js on the backend.

Related: javascript node react

Junit

library

A Unit Testing library for Java

Related: Spock

Kafka

message queue

Kafka is a tool used to build streaming data pipelines. It can be used as a message queue and also a way to store and play back data streams. Tends to be popular in large enterprises using Java.

Karma

library

A test runner for testing the UI of web applications in a browser. Tests are written in JavaScript.

Kestrel

web server

Kestrel is a cross platform web server ASP.NET Core. It is used for writing applications in C#.NET (for example) and then being able to run the web server on a linux .NET Core platform.

Related: .NET

Kinesis

system

Used to collect, process and analyze streams of data such as application log messages, video data or audio data. Compare to Kafka which also treats data as streams of information.

Related: AWS

Kotlin

language

Kotlin is a JVM language (meaning is runs on the Java platform). The language itself is similar to Java in many ways and most Java developers should be able to pick it up easily.

Related: Java

Kubernetes

orchestration

Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration system for automating deployment. Typically used with Docker, it can deploy images and make sure they stay running as well as autoscale to handle increased traffic. Often found in job descriptions with lots of DevOps work.

More info
Related: docker

Lambda

cloud service

AWS Lambda is a service for building serverless software applications. Lambda is Amazon's proprietary serverless compute framework. Lambda lets you deploy code to the cloud without running a server 24/7 and it only charges you if your web service is being used.

More info
Related: AWS

Laravel

framework

Laravel is a popular and modern backend web development framework written in PHP.

Related: PHP

Linux

os

An operating system like Windows or Mac OSX. It is widely used to run web servers and other software applications.

Related: windows osx

MEAN

tech-stack

MEAN stack stands for MonogDb, Express, Angular and Node.js. It is a full tech stack for building applications and it is known because it is based 100% in JavaScript, and the data storage format is JSON.

Related: angular mongodb express javascript node

MERN

tech-stack

MERN stack stands for MonogDb, Express, React and Node.js. "MEAN stack" terminology was popularized first, this is just replacing Angular with React in the stack.

Related: MEAN React Mongodb express javascript node

MSSQL

database

Microsoft's flagship relational database (RDBMS). Has many advanced UI tools for designing and managing databases. Can be compared similarly with MySQL or Oracle.

Related: MySQL Oracle

MVC

engineering practice

MVC stands for "Model View Controller", which is a popular pattern for application development. This is geared towards enterprise application development frameworks and is often reached for when developing larger applications with larger engineering teams. More commonly used on backend frameworks but you will find front-end MVC style frameworks for building applications as well.

Related: design patterns rails spring sails

MapReduce

big-data

MapReduce is a programming model for handling Big Data. MapReduce is a general technique but it is often associated with Hadoop as a implementation.

Related: Hadoop

Maven

build system

A dependency management (it automatically downloads libraries) and build system for Java based applications. Gradle is much more widely used these days.

Related: Java Gradle

Memcached

cache

A key-value store meant to be used as a cache layer in applications.

Microservice

engineering practice

Microservice architecture is a way of building server side applications so that they tend to do only one thing, or only a small number of related things. It is very popular in large enterprises because it enabled them to divide up the work into teams and segment responsibilities. This was made popular by Martin Fowler at Thoughtworks.

MongoDB

database

MongoDB is a database that stores data in a document structure as BSON (which is binary JSON, but you can think of it as just JSON). It is the "M" in MEAN stack. Very popular to use with JavaScript due to using JSON format.

Related: json javascript

Mongoose

library

An ORM specifically built to map from MongoDB to Node.js.

Related: node mongodb orm

MySQL

database

An extremely popular relational database system.

NFT

technology

Non Fungible Tokens are a concept of a digital token that cannot be divided. Commonly used on the Ethererum network to represent things like digital art or assets.

Related: Ethereum DeFi

Neo4J

database

A graph database that is commonly used with Java and has excellent visualization capabilities.

Related: arangoDB graph database

Next.js

framework

Next.js is a development framework for building React applications. It supports server side rendering out of the box. Next.js has a lot of advanced features aimed at speeding up performance that can be hard to build on your own. Increasingly popular and I've been seeing it adopted pretty widely in the last couple of years.

Related: node react javascript

Nginx

web server

Nginx is a fast web server that is also often used as a proxy server. Nginx has essentially taken over the position in the market that the Apache web server used to have.

Related: apache

NoSQL

database

NoSQL is a classification of database. NoSQL tends to mean any newer database system that is not a traditional Relational Database system (RDBMS). Examples are MongoDB, Redis, Cassandra and ElasticSearch.

Related: mongodb cassandra redis

Node

language

Node.js can simply be thought of as JavaScript on the server side. Originally JavaScript was developed only to run inside of web browsers on the client side of websites, but Node has become very popular as a choice for server side development.

Related: JavaScript MEAN MERN

Numpy

library

Numpy is a math library for Python commonly used in data science and machine learning projects.

Related: python data science

Nuxt

framework

A rapid development framework for client side JavaScript development build on top of Vue.js.

Related: JavaScript Vue

ORM

library

A library to help map from tables to objects. Helps resolve the "impedance mismatch" that occurs when transferring table data from a database to object data in a programming language. Most developers using a SQL databases use an ORM while programming.

More info
Related: mongoose sequelize hibernate

OSX

os

Apple's flagship operating system that powers their desktop computers and laptops.

Oauth

auth system

Oauth (and Oauth 2.0) are authentication systems that allow easy authentication using a trusted 3rd party. E.g. "Sign in with Facebook" or "Sign in with Google". Oauth systems allow you to avoid storing user passwords in your own system.

Related: SSO cognito

ObjectiveC

language

Objective-C is a C-Style language used for developing iOS and apple Mac desktop applications. This is the older language (the newer one being Swift) and is often used more for legacy applications.

Related: XCode iOS Swift

Oracle

database

Oracle is a company known for making database software, but they also many other tech products including Java. Usually on a resume this refers to one of Oracle's flagship database products for which the company is named, which are relational databases with many advanced features.

Related: MySQL MSSQL

PHP

language

PHP is a scripting language built for the easily developing web pages with server side functionality. The "P" in LAMP stack, this is used for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and other popular CMS and blogging platforms.

PLC

technology

A Programmable Logic Controller - usually refers to a computer purpose built to control assembly lines, manufacturing processes, robots, and other kinds of industrial devices. Jobs mentioning PLCs usually fall into the category of hardware or electrical engineering.

PWA

engineering practice

PWA - Progressive Web App. A type of browser based web application designed to work on all browsers, omitting features that less capable browsers do not support. The goal is to make "content first" applications, meaning that the application should still be usable even if it is missing advanced features of some browsers.

Related: html5

Pandas

library

Pandas is a Python library commonly used in data science and machine learning projects. It is used to represent manipulatable data tables in memory (think of it like a spreadsheet programming system).

Related: python data science

Perl

language

A general purpose programming language commonly used for scripting, server side web development. Perl is basically a dead language at this point (for a variety of reasons) and it's successor is typically considered to be Python.

Postgres

language

A popular open source Relational Database system similar to MySQL.

Related: MySQL MSSQL Oracle SQL

Powershell

language

A scripting language developed by Microsoft for automating tasks on a windows command line environment.

Related: .NET Bash windows

Preact

library

Preact is a project based on React, but meant to be faster and have a smaller bundle size (the size of the website when download content to a user's browser). Preact does not have all of the features of React.

Related: React

Production

software engineering

The environment in which actual customers are using a software project. "Pushing to prod" means updating a given piece of software in the production environment.

More info
Related: SDLC Production Support

Production Support

software engineering

Supporting a project in "production" means monitoring and responding to issues with an application being actively used by real customers. This is an aspect of the job for most developers working on software products and includes responding to events an issues using an on-call rotation system. This is a real concern for roles such as Backend Developers, DevOps, and SREs.

More info
Related: SDLC Production

Puppeteer

library

A node.js library that provides a high level API used to control headless chrome browser. Commonly used for automated browser testing.

Related: Cypress

PureScript

language

A functional programming language that compiles down to JavaScript.

Related: JavaScript

PyPy

language

PyPy is another runtime for Python meant to run Python programs faster. PyPy runs Python code, but uses must deal with library incompatibilities and other issues.

Related: python data science

Python

language

A general purpose programming language commonly used for scripting, server side web development, dev ops, data science, and machine learning. An extremely popular language in schools and courses.

RDS

system

A managed relational database product similar to something like MySQL, except it is an AWS product and only runs on their cloud platform.

Related: AWS

REST

protocol

REST stands for Representational State Transfer. It is an architectural style for building web services, otherwise known as APIs. Usually used in conjunction with either JSON or XML as the data interchange format. Sometimes people describe REST services as "Restful".

More info
Related: xml json

Rails

library

A server side framework for rapidly developing software, web services, and APIs. It is written in Ruby.

Related: ruby

React

library

React is a JavaScript web framework developed at Facebook. Often used to build single-page applications. It allows large teams to develop reusable and easily testable code bases through component re-use. Often used with other technologies like Redux, Axios, and Apollo.

More info
Related: JavaScript JSX Redux

ReactNative

framework

React Native is a cross platform development framework for making iOS and Android applications using React code to define the logic and UI.

Related: React

Redis

cache

A key-value store meant to be used as a cache layer in applications.

Redshift

database

A cloud data warehouse by Amazon (AWS) that is used for massive parallel processing (MPP). It is one of Amazons's Big Data offerings.

Related: Hadoop

Redux

library

Redux is a state management system often used with React, but it can also be used with Angular for example. It is used to store and organize information while a user is on a website, and is often used in large complex websites with a lot of "moving parts", like a chat application.

More info
Related: React

Ruby

language

A server side language commonly used for server side development along with the framework Ruby on Rails.

Related: python

Rust

language

Rust is a programming language meant for development where memory and performance constraints matter.

S3

cloud service

AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service) is cloud service to store files. You can programatically interact with S3, for example to store user file uploads in a web application. S3 can also be used to websites. This is system that many software applications use and most experienced developers have used this service.

More info
Related: AWS

SAML

auth system

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is a standard used for authentication. Commonly SAML is used to interface with SSO (Single Sign On) systems.

Related: SSO

SASS

library

Sass - Sassy CSS. Billed as a "better CSS". It is a CSS library that adds new features to the language and then is transformed to regular CSS before it is used in the browser.

Related: CSS SCSS

SCSS

library

SCSS is a syntax supported by SASS starting with version 3 of the SASS library. Sass is a CSS library that adds new features to the language and then is transformed to regular CSS before it is used in the browser.

Related: CSS SASS

SDLC

engineering practice

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a process used by the software industry to design, develop and test high quality software. It is usually just some boilerplate that people put in job descriptions, I have never heard anyone talk about SDLC except in jokes or in passing after working in many different organizations as a software developer.

More info

SNS

system

AWS Simple Notification System - a pub/sub messaging system. Can be used to send notifications between software systems, mobile push, SMS and email.

Related: AWS

SOAP

protocol

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a messaging protocol for building web services. It plays a similar role as REST, but SOAP is much older and much hated by developers for its complexity and verbosity (the word "simple" in the name is a lie). SOAP is implemented using XML.

More info
Related: xml json REST

SQL

language

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a language for retrieving data from databases. Each database that uses sql usually has a slightly different dialect of SQL.

Related: MySQL MSSQL Oracle Postgres

SQLite

database

A relational database system that is usually used to embed in mobile apps, or offline applications. It does not run as a server that can handle multiple clients, just single file.

Related: MySQL MSSQL Oracle SQL

SQS

message queue

AWS Simple Queue Service - a fully managed message queue service product that runs on the AWS cloud platform.

Related: AWS

SSH

server utility

SSH (Secure Shell) is a way of establishing encrypted connections between computers. In practice people use SSH to connect to servers in datacenters and interact with them on the command line. Developers and DevOps people can use this to set up servers, do maintenance, or troubleshoot bugs.

Related: linux

SSO

auth system

SSO (Single Sign On) refers to authentication systems where a single database of users + password accounts allows employees to log in to multiple applications with the same set of credentials. This is very general term and can refer many different types of SSO systems.

Sails

framework

Sails.js is a backend framework for node applications. It's an MVC style framework which means it's a lot more opinionated than a simpler backend web framework like Express.

Related: node mvc

Salesforce

platform

Salesforce is a company known for making CRM (customer relationship management) software, but they have a large platform with many tools. They also have a programming language called "Apex". So mentions of Salesforce may either mean using their tools, using their APIs, or programming in Apex.

More info
Related: Apex

Scala

language

An object oriented, functional programming language that runs on the JVM. Scala was used to write Kafka. Has a reputation of being good a concurrency.

Related: Java

Scikit-Learn

library

Scikit-Learn is a library of utilities and programs that help Python programmers do machine learning tasks (e.g. cleaning data) as well as build and train model.

Related: python data science

Scrum

engineering practice

A type of Agile process for building software. Most people doing "Agile" tend to be doing scrum, which includes Sprints, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum meetings, Sprint Reviews, Sprint Retrospectives, and backlog refinement.

More info
Related: agile

Selenium

application

A browser automation software frequently used for testing the client side of web applications. Usually testers will write selenium tests in JavaScript often using other libraries to help with the task. Selenium can be used for purposes other than testing software.

Sentry

monitoring system

Sentry is open source monitoring software you can install to monitor logs and errors in your application.

Sequelize

library

An ORM made for mapping between Node.js and relational databases. Supported databases are Postgres, MSSQL Server, MariaDB, SQLLite, and MySQL.

Related: node postgres mysql orm

Sinatra

Framework

A backend web framework for Ruby. Meant to be a more lightweight solution than Ruby On Rails.

Related: Ruby Rails

Solana

technology

Solana is a blockchain that is meant to be a smart contract computing platform similar to Ethereum. The main difference is that the network runs much faster and fees are much lower (with a trade off of less decentralization). Solana developers use the Rust programming language.

Related: blockchain cryptocurrency defi rust

Solidity

language

Solidity is a programming languages used to develop smart contracts on Ethereum.

Related: ES6 Ethereum DeFi blockchain

Spark

analytics

Apache Spark is a cluster computing framework. Mostly used for analytics and machine learning it is a tool for working with what people tend to call "Big Data".

Splunk

platform

Splunk is a software company that makes products that are primarily used for monitoring and reporting on logging application data from software. For example, you would use Splunk to store error logs coming from your application and do real-time reporting and alerting on that information.

Spock

library

A Unit Testing library for Java

Related: Junit

Spring

framework

Spring is a server side Java framework for building web services and APIs. It is has many tools for building services using microservice architecture.

Related: java

Svelte

library

A client side JavaScript library similar to React or Vue.

Related: JavaScript

Swift

language

Swift is the newer programming language for the iOS and MacOS platform which is used to create iPhone and iPad applications (among other things).

Related: XCode iOS ObjectiveC

TDD

engineering practice

TDD, or Test Driven Development, is an engineering practice where developers write tests first, then write the code to build the functionality they are testing. Adherents maintain that this produces higher quality code.

TFS

version-control

A version control system developed by Microsoft used to store and manage source code.

Related: git

TensorFlow

library

TensorFlow platform for building machine learning models commonly used with Python.

Related: python data science

Terraform

automation tool

Terraform is a tool that allows an engineer to write code and to automatically create cloud infrastructure from it. E.g. you write code describing your AWS environment, and then run a command which connects to AWS to create what you have described.

More info
Related: AWS

Tomcat

web server

Tomcat is a web server for running java applications. It a bit old of a technology where people were running multiple applications together in a shared environment to save resources. Now, people tend to not use Tomcat and dockerize individual Java deployments.

Related: Java

TypeScript

language

TypeScript is the JavaScript language with strict typing added to it. Popular with both Angular and React developers, it can help make code easier to work on with large projects. Basically this is JavaScript, but the source code is written in the TypeScript dialect, then compiled down JavaScript so it can run on the browser or as a Node application.

Related: JavaScript Node

UI

software component

UI stands for User Interface. This is part of the application that a user sees and interacts with. Often mentioned in job postings for frontend developers.

Related: UX

UX

engineering practice

UX stands for User Experience, which is concerned with design practices around how a users feels about using a product, navigates through interacting with software, and general overall experience when using a software product. UX is often mentioned in job postings for frontend developers, designers, and product managers.

Related: UI

Uniswap

software

Uniswap is a decentralized exchange - meaning that unlike e.g. Coinbase it runs entirely on a blockchain and is decentralized and permissionless in nature. Uniswap was written in Solidity and first deployed to the Ethereum network

Related: blockchain cryptocurrency defi dex ethereum

VBA

language

A Microsoft scripting language frequently used for Excel automation (and for other Microsoft Office products).

Related: .NET

VBScript

language

A Microsoft Windows scripting language used for automating tasks. Used to be used in Internet Explorer, but now is obsolete.

Related: .NET

VCS

engineering practice

VCS - refers to "Version Control Systems". These are used to store and share source code on software projects.

Related: git tfs

VMWare

application

WMWare is a company that makes virtualization software, but when you see this on a resume it typically means familiarity with VMWare Hypervisors and running operating systems virtual machines in a virtualized environment.

Related: hypervisor

VPN

technology

Virtual Private Network - a system for connecting over the internet into a remote network to make it appear as though you are inside of that network. E.g. you can "VPN in" to your office from your home and then access all of the website on your company's intranet.

Related: SSH

Vite

framework

Vite is a framework that provides tooling for frontend developer. It can be used with several different UI javascript technologies such as React, Vue and Svelte.

Related: react vue

Vue

library

Vue is a popular client side JavaScript framework that is similar to React, although many people consider it easier to use.

Related: JavaScript

Vyper

language

Vyper is a programming languages used to develop smart contracts on Ethereum.

Related: Python Ethereum DeFi

Webpack

library

A library for building client side site bundles, commonly used with React to help to transform and bundle the code for the browser. During this bundling process optimizations often take place.

Related: React

Windows

os

A visual operating system that is so ubiquitous it's not worth explaining.

Wordpress

cms system

The most common CMS system on the web! Written in PHP. Usually only requires technical help from a programmer for custom development.

Related: PHP

XCode

editor

The editor used on Mac computers to build iOS applications and OSX applications.

Related: OSX

XML

language

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a data interchange format. It can be used to transmit or store information, and has a structure similar to HTML. Has mostly been superseded by JSON.

Related: HTTP REST

iOS

platform

The Mobile operating system for Apple devices. iOS runs on iPhones and iPads. The native programming languages for these devices are Swift and ObjectiveC

Related: XCode swift ObjectiveC

jQuery

library

jQuery is an enormously popular JavaScript library, still often used with WordPress and other older CMS (Content Management) and Blogging systems. jQuery is less popular now that React and Angular have started to dominate client side web development, but it is still relevant.

Related: javascript