Software Terms Explained Simply

A file that stores environment variables for your local development environment

Showing different versions of something to different users to see which performs better

Specific conditions that must be met for a feature to be considered complete and working correctly.

Designing and building websites so they can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities.

A set of properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) that guarantee database transactions are reliable.

A mathematical function in a neural network that decides whether a neuron should pass its signal forward.

AI systems that can autonomously plan, make decisions, and take actions to accomplish goals.

A flexible approach to software development that delivers work in small, frequent increments with regular feedback.

Computer systems that can learn, reason, and make decisions like humans

The challenge of ensuring AI systems pursue goals that match human values and intentions.

The field of research focused on ensuring AI systems behave as intended and do not cause harm.

A step-by-step set of instructions for solving a specific problem or performing a computation.

Tools that track and report how visitors interact with your website or app

A way for different software applications to talk to each other and share data

A server that acts as a single entry point for all API requests, routing them to the appropriate backend service.

A unique code passed with API requests to identify the calling application and control access.

Maintaining multiple versions of an API so existing clients keep working when you make breaking changes.

A set of HTML attributes that make web content more accessible to people using assistive technologies.

The predictable revenue your business earns per year from active subscriptions, typically MRR multiplied by 12.

A cleaner way to write code that waits for slow operations to complete

Parallel attention mechanisms within a transformer that each focus on different types of relationships in the input.

A technique that lets AI models focus on the most relevant parts of the input when generating output.

The process of verifying who someone is, usually through a username and password

Determining what actions or data a verified user is allowed to access

Automatically adding or removing servers based on current demand.

An AI model that generates output one piece at a time, using each piece to predict the next.

A system that automatically adjusts the number of running instances of your application based on demand.

An independent data centre within a cloud region, isolated from failures in other zones.

Amazon Web Services, the world's largest cloud computing platform offering hundreds of services

Microsoft's cloud computing platform, popular with enterprises using Microsoft products

A cloud service that provides ready-made backend features like databases, authentication, and file storage.

The behind-the-scenes part of an application that handles data, logic, and communication with databases

A task that runs behind the scenes without making users wait for it to complete

A prioritised list of features, improvements, and bug fixes waiting to be worked on.

The algorithm that calculates how to adjust each part of a neural network to reduce errors.

A copy of your data stored separately in case the original is lost or corrupted

A database principle (Basically Available, Soft state, Eventually consistent) that prioritises availability over immediate consistency.

Processing a large collection of data all at once on a schedule, rather than continuously.

The number of training examples an AI model processes at once before updating its knowledge.

A development approach that describes software behaviour in plain English scenarios that serve as both documentation and tests.

Releasing an early version of a product to a limited group of real users to find bugs and gather feedback.

When an AI system produces unfair or skewed results because of imbalances in its training data or design.

A mathematical way to describe how the performance of an algorithm changes as the input size grows.

Binary Large Object - a way to store files like images, videos, or documents as raw data

A deployment strategy that runs two identical production environments, switching traffic from the old to the new.

Standard, reusable code or project structure that serves as a starting point for new projects.

The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page.

An independent line of development that lets you work on features without affecting the main code

An error or flaw in software that causes it to behave unexpectedly

The process of converting your source code into the optimised version that runs in production

Combining multiple files into fewer files for more efficient loading

A tool that combines your many source files into optimised bundles that browsers can load efficiently.

The number of team members who would need to leave before critical knowledge is lost.

The average cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses.

A temporary storage that keeps copies of frequently accessed data for faster retrieval

A plan for how and when to store and refresh cached data to balance freshness and performance.

A function that runs after another operation completes

Gradually rolling out a new version to a small percentage of users before making it available to everyone.

A principle stating that a distributed database can only guarantee two of three properties: Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance.

A network of servers around the world that stores copies of your content closer to users

A prompting technique that asks AI to show its reasoning step by step before giving a final answer.

The percentage of customers who stop using your product or cancel their subscription in a given period.

Automated processes that test your code (Continuous Integration) and deploy it (Continuous Deployment) whenever you make changes

A pattern that stops calling a failing service temporarily to prevent cascading failures.

Command Line Interface - a way to interact with software by typing text commands

Code or processing that happens in the user's browser

Using remote servers over the internet instead of your own computers

Google Cloud's serverless platform for running individual functions in response to events.

A Google Cloud service that runs containers with automatic scaling and no server management.

A service that speeds up and protects websites by acting as an intermediary between users and your server.

AWS's content delivery network that caches and serves your content from locations around the world.

A metric measuring how much page content unexpectedly moves around while loading.

Software that lets non-technical users create, edit, and manage website content without writing code.

A measurement of how much of your code is tested by automated tests, expressed as a percentage.

A program designed specifically for writing and editing code

Having other developers examine your code changes before they're merged

A pattern in code that suggests a deeper problem, even if the code technically works.

Breaking your application's code into smaller chunks that load only when needed.

Grouping users by when they joined and tracking how each group behaves over time.

A database that organises data into columns rather than rows, optimised for reading large datasets quickly.

A saved snapshot of your code changes with a message describing what changed

Converting code from one form to another, typically from human-readable to machine-executable

Meeting the requirements of laws, regulations, and industry standards that apply to your business.

A reusable building block of a user interface that can be combined to create complex pages

A collection of pre-built, reusable UI components that developers can use to build interfaces quickly.

The field of AI that enables computers to understand and interpret images and video.

A table that shows how often a classification model gets things right and wrong for each category.

Reusing a set of pre-established database connections rather than creating a new one for each request.

An approach to AI training where the model is given a set of principles to self-evaluate and improve its own responses.

A lightweight, isolated package containing an application and everything it needs to run

A storage and distribution service for Docker container images.

A security header that tells browsers which sources of content are trusted for your website.

The maximum amount of text an AI model can consider at once when generating a response.

The percentage of visitors who take a desired action, like signing up or making a purchase.

Measuring when users complete desired actions like purchases, signups, or downloads

A type of neural network designed to process grid-like data such as images by detecting patterns and features.

A small piece of data stored in your browser that websites use to remember you

Google's three key metrics for measuring page loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability.

A security mechanism that controls which websites can make requests to your server.

A pattern that uses separate models for reading data and writing data.

A scheduled task that runs automatically at specific times or intervals

A mechanism where one sequence of data attends to another, enabling models to connect different inputs.

The four basic operations for managing data: Create, Read, Update, and Delete

An attack that tricks a logged-in user's browser into making unwanted requests to a site they are authenticated with.

The language that controls how websites look, including colours, fonts, spacing, and layout

A CSS layout system that lets you create two-dimensional layouts with rows and columns.

A CSS approach that automatically scopes class names to a specific component to prevent naming conflicts.

Custom properties in CSS that let you define reusable values like colours and spacing.

A technique where CSS styles are written directly in JavaScript code alongside component logic.

A pagination method that uses a pointer to the last item seen rather than page numbers.

A display setting that uses light text on a dark background instead of the default dark-on-light.

Creating variations of existing training data to increase dataset size and improve model performance.

A storage system that holds large amounts of raw data in its original format until it is needed.

The process of designing how data will be structured, stored, and related in a database.

An automated series of steps that moves and processes data from one system to another.

Converting data structures into a format that can be stored or transmitted, like JSON or XML.

A large database optimised for storing and analysing historical data from multiple sources.

An organised collection of data that your application can store, retrieve, and update

Software that manages and tracks changes to your database structure over time.

An attack that overwhelms a website with traffic from many sources, making it unavailable to real users.

A situation where two or more database operations are waiting for each other and none can proceed.

Delaying an action until the user stops performing it for a short period, preventing excessive function calls.

The process of finding and fixing bugs in your code

A type of machine learning that uses neural networks with many layers to learn complex patterns.

Deliberately adding redundant data to a database to improve read performance.

External code that your project needs to function

A technique where a component receives its dependencies from the outside rather than creating them itself.

The process of making your application available for users to access on the internet

Reusable solutions to common software design problems that have been proven to work well.

A collection of reusable components, guidelines, and standards that ensure consistent design across a product.

A shorthand syntax for extracting values from objects or arrays into individual variables.

Your local setup where you write and test code before deploying

A set of practices that combines software development and IT operations to deliver software faster and more reliably.

A type of AI that generates images by gradually removing noise from a random starting point, guided by a text prompt.

Plans and systems for restoring operations after major failures

A system where components run on multiple computers that coordinate to appear as a single system.

The internet's phone book that translates domain names into the server addresses computers understand

The time it takes for DNS changes to spread across all servers on the internet.

A tool that packages your application and everything it needs to run into a standardised container

A database that stores data as flexible, self-describing documents, typically in JSON-like format.

The human-readable web address people type to visit your website, like '13labs.com.au'

A company authorised to sell and manage domain names on your behalf.

An approach to software design that organises code around real business concepts and processes.

A principle that says every piece of knowledge in your code should have a single, unambiguous source of truth.

A fully managed NoSQL database service from AWS designed for high-speed, high-scale applications.

End-to-end test that simulates a real user completing tasks in your application

AWS's virtual server service that lets you rent computers in the cloud with flexible specifications.

AWS's container orchestration service for running and managing Docker containers at scale.

Running AI models directly on local devices like phones or sensors rather than in the cloud.

Processing data at locations close to the user rather than in a centralised data centre.

Code that runs on servers close to your users around the world, rather than in one central location

A distributed network of servers located in many cities around the world to serve content closer to users.

AWS's managed Kubernetes service that runs Kubernetes without you managing the control plane.

A search engine that can quickly search and analyse large volumes of data.

A way of representing words, sentences, or other data as lists of numbers that capture their meaning.

An AI architecture where one part compresses input into a representation and another part generates output from it.

Scrambling data so only authorised parties can read it

A specific URL where your API receives requests and sends responses

A separate instance of your application configured for a specific purpose, like development, staging, or production.

Secret settings stored outside your code, like passwords and API keys

The number of times an AI model goes through the entire training dataset during training.

Code that gracefully manages problems instead of crashing or showing confusing messages

A process that extracts data from sources, transforms it into a useful format, and loads it into a destination.

A design pattern where components communicate by producing and reacting to events rather than direct calls.

A model where data updates propagate gradually and all copies will eventually match, but may differ briefly.

A tool that shows how the database will execute a query, revealing which indexes it uses and how it processes data.

A single number that balances precision and recall into one measure of model accuracy.

An AWS service that runs containers without you needing to manage the underlying servers.

React's improved hot reload that preserves component state while updating code

A separate branch created from the main codebase to develop a specific feature independently.

Switches that let you turn features on or off without deploying new code

A configuration switch that lets you enable or disable features without deploying new code.

A training approach where AI learns from data spread across many devices without the data ever leaving those devices.

Teaching an AI model to perform a task by showing it just a few examples in the prompt.

A metric measuring the time from when a user first interacts with a page to when the browser can respond.

Adapting a pre-trained AI model to perform better on a specific task by training it on additional specialised data.

A Google platform providing backend services like authentication, databases, and hosting for web and mobile apps.

A CSS layout method for arranging items in a single row or column with flexible spacing and alignment.

Checking that user input meets expected rules before submitting it to the server.

Automatically arranging code to follow consistent style rules

A large AI model trained on broad data that can be adapted for many different tasks.

A foundation of pre-built code that provides structure and common functionality for building apps

The part of a website or app that users see and interact with directly

Working on both the frontend (what users see) and backend (the server and database) of an application

Searching through the complete text content of documents, not just exact matches on specific fields.

Tracking how users progress through a series of steps and where they drop off.

Search that finds results even when the search query contains typos or approximate matches.

An AI system where two neural networks compete against each other to produce increasingly realistic outputs.

Google Cloud Platform, Google's cloud computing services competing with AWS

European Union regulation that governs how businesses collect, store, and process personal data.

A way to write flexible, reusable code that works with different data types while maintaining type safety.

A system that tracks every change to your code, letting you see history, undo mistakes, and collaborate with others

A website where developers store, share, and collaborate on code using Git

Managing infrastructure and deployments by storing all configuration in Git and using pull requests to make changes.

Designing a system so it continues to work with reduced functionality when some components fail.

The mathematical process AI models use to gradually reduce errors and improve their predictions.

A database that stores data as nodes and relationships, optimised for querying connected data.

An alternative to REST APIs that lets you request exactly the data you need in a single call

A high-performance communication protocol for connecting services, using a compact binary format instead of text.

When an AI model generates information that sounds plausible but is factually incorrect or made up.

Converting data into a fixed-length code that cannot be reversed to reveal the original

A content management system that provides content via an API without dictating how it is displayed.

An endpoint or process that verifies a service is running and functioning correctly.

A visual overlay showing where users click, scroll, and hover on your web pages.

Adding more servers to handle increased load

A service that stores your website or application and serves it to users when they visit

The code path that runs most frequently or handles the most critical operations in your application.

Automatically updating your app when you save code changes, without a full refresh

The language that defines the structure and content of web pages

The secure version of HTTP that encrypts all data sent between a browser and website

The process where JavaScript takes over a server-rendered page to make it interactive

Settings you choose before training an AI model that control how the training process works.

Infrastructure as a Service - renting virtual computers and infrastructure in the cloud

A system for managing who has access to which cloud resources and what they can do with them.

Integrated Development Environment - a specialised program for writing, testing, and debugging code

A property where performing the same operation multiple times produces the same result as doing it once.

Using AI to create new images from text descriptions or other inputs.

Reducing image file sizes and choosing the right format to make web pages load faster.

A practice where servers are never modified after deployment. Instead, new servers replace old ones entirely.

The process of detecting, responding to, and resolving production problems that affect users.

Creating a data structure that makes database lookups much faster, like an index in a book.

The process of using a trained AI model to generate predictions or outputs from new input data.

Automatically loading more content as you scroll down, without clicking to the next page

The practice of organising and structuring content so users can find what they need easily.

Managing servers, networks, and other infrastructure through code files rather than manual setup.

A metric measuring the overall responsiveness of a page to user interactions throughout its lifetime.

Training an AI model to follow specific instructions by providing examples of instruction-response pairs.

A test that checks if multiple parts of your system work correctly together

Designing software so it can be adapted to different languages and regions without code changes.

A design principle where a framework calls your code rather than your code calling the framework.

An international standard for managing information security through a systematic framework.

Updating static pages in the background without rebuilding your entire site

A modern web architecture using JavaScript, APIs, and Markup for fast, secure sites

The programming language that makes websites interactive and dynamic

A lightweight data format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit structured data.

A secure digital pass that proves who you are without needing to check the database every time

A visual workflow management method that uses a board with columns to track work items as they progress.

A simple database that stores data as pairs of keys and values, like a dictionary.

Specific, measurable values that track how effectively a business is achieving its objectives.

A system for automatically managing, scaling, and deploying containerised applications

An AWS service that runs your code in response to events without you managing any servers.

An AI system trained on massive amounts of text that can understand and generate human language.

The time delay between a request and its response

Delaying the loading of content or code until it is actually needed.

A metric measuring how long it takes for the largest visible content element to finish loading.

A methodology for building businesses by rapidly testing ideas with real customers and iterating based on feedback.

A number that controls how much an AI model adjusts its knowledge from each batch of training data.

Giving users and systems only the minimum permissions they need to do their job.

A collection of pre-written code that performs specific tasks you can use in your project

Automatically checking your code for errors, bugs, and style issues

A system that distributes incoming traffic across multiple servers to prevent any one from being overwhelmed

Simulating many simultaneous users to test how your application performs under heavy traffic.

Adapting your product for a specific language and region, including translations, date formats, and currencies.

Recording events and information as your application runs, creating a trail for debugging and analysis.

A technique where the client makes a request and the server holds it open until new data is available.

Platforms that minimise coding through visual tools but allow custom code when needed

An improved type of recurrent neural network that can remember information over longer sequences.

The total revenue you can expect from a single customer over the entire time they remain a customer.

An AI model trained by hiding random words in text and learning to predict what the missing words are.

A bug where an application keeps using more and more memory over time because it fails to release unused data.

Combining code changes from one branch into another

A system that stores messages between services, ensuring they are processed even if the receiving service is busy.

Hidden information in your web pages that tells search engines and social media about your content

A security method requiring multiple forms of verification, such as something you know, have, and are.

An architecture where an application is built as many small, independent services that work together

Code that runs between receiving a request and sending a response, often handling common tasks

A controlled way to change your database structure over time, with the ability to undo changes

Removing unnecessary characters from code, like whitespace and comments, to reduce file size.

The whole team working together on the same code at the same time, with one person typing.

A design approach that starts with the mobile version and then adds enhancements for larger screens

Creating fake versions of external services or components during testing so tests run reliably and quickly.

A detailed, realistic visual representation of what a product will look like, including colours, fonts, and images.

Creating a smaller, faster AI model that mimics the behaviour of a larger, more capable one.

The process of measuring how well an AI model performs on tasks it was designed for.

A self-contained piece of code that can be imported and used in other parts of your project

A popular NoSQL database that stores data as flexible documents similar to JSON

Continuously observing your application and infrastructure to detect problems and understand performance.

An application where all features are built and deployed as a single unit

A single code repository that contains multiple related projects or packages.

A prioritisation technique that categorises requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Will not have.

The predictable revenue your business earns each month from active subscriptions.

AI systems that can understand and work with multiple types of input such as text, images, audio, and video.

Minimum Viable Product - the simplest version of your product that delivers value to users

A widely-used open-source relational database known for its speed and reliability.

A performance issue where fetching a list of items triggers one additional database query for each item.

An AI technique that identifies and classifies named items in text, such as people, places, and organisations.

The branch of AI focused on enabling computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language.

A cloud platform for deploying and hosting websites and web applications with built-in CI/CD.

A computing system inspired by the human brain, made up of layers of connected nodes that learn patterns from data.

A framework built on React that adds features like page routing, server-side rendering, and API handling

Tools that let you build applications using visual interfaces without writing any code

A platform that lets you run JavaScript on servers, not just in browsers

Organising a database to reduce redundancy by splitting data into related tables.

The single most important metric that best captures the value your product delivers to customers.

Databases that store data differently from traditional tables, often as flexible documents or key-value pairs

The default package manager for JavaScript, with millions of free packages available

A customer satisfaction metric based on how likely customers are to recommend your product on a scale of 0-10.

A standard that lets you log into apps using your existing accounts from Google, Facebook, or other providers

The ability to understand what is happening inside your system by examining its outputs: logs, metrics, and traces.

A pagination method that skips a fixed number of records to get the next page of results.

A goal-setting framework where objectives define what you want to achieve and key results measure progress.

Database systems optimised for complex analytical queries across large volumes of historical data.

Database systems optimised for handling many small, fast transactions like user actions and purchases.

A rotation where team members are responsible for responding to production incidents outside business hours.

Software whose source code is freely available for anyone to view, use, modify, and distribute.

AI models whose code and sometimes weights are freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute.

A modern authentication standard built on top of OAuth that verifies user identity.

A tool that lets you work with database data using your programming language instead of SQL

When an AI model memorises its training data too closely and performs poorly on new, unseen data.

An open community focused on improving software security, best known for their Top 10 list of critical web security risks.

Platform as a Service - cloud services that let you deploy apps without managing servers

A bundle of code that can be easily shared and reused across projects

A tool that installs, updates, and manages the external code libraries your project uses

Breaking large lists of data into smaller pages that load separately

Two developers working together at one computer, with one writing code and the other reviewing in real time.

Security standards that any business handling credit card payments must follow to protect cardholder data.

Authorised simulated attacks on a system to find security vulnerabilities before real attackers do.

A fast, space-efficient alternative to npm for managing JavaScript packages

Repeatedly checking for new data at regular intervals

A powerful, free, open-source database known for reliability and advanced features

A meeting and document analysing what went wrong after an incident, focused on learning and prevention.

Two metrics for measuring AI accuracy. Precision measures how many selected items are relevant. Recall measures how many relevant items were selected.

Loading resources in advance before the user actually requests them to make navigation feel instant.

The process of deciding which features or tasks to work on first based on value and effort.

Tools and practices for tracking how users interact with your product to inform decisions.

The point where your product satisfies a strong market demand and customers actively want it.

The live environment where real users access your application

A website that can work like a native app, with offline support, push notifications, and home screen installation.

A way to handle operations that will complete in the future, with success or failure

The practice of crafting effective instructions for AI models to get the best possible responses.

AI models owned and controlled by a company, typically accessed through paid APIs or subscriptions.

Data passed from a parent component to a child component to customise its appearance or behaviour

An early model of a product used to test ideas and gather feedback

A messaging pattern where senders publish messages to a topic and any number of subscribers receive them.

A request to merge your code changes into the main project, allowing others to review first

Uploading your local commits to a remote repository like GitHub

Reducing the precision of numbers in an AI model to make it smaller and faster without losing much accuracy.

A request to retrieve, create, update, or delete data from a database

The process of making database queries run faster and use fewer resources.

A list of tasks waiting to be processed in order

A bug that occurs when two operations happen at the same time and the outcome depends on which finishes first.

Restricting how many requests a user or system can make in a given time period

The specific method used to count and limit how many requests a user can make in a given time period.

An AWS service that manages relational databases for you, handling backups, patching, and scaling.

A popular tool for building user interfaces, created by Facebook, that makes complex UIs easier to manage

Functions that let you use React features like state and side effects in simple function components.

Features that update instantly without needing to refresh the page

Analysing data as it arrives to provide instant insights and enable immediate decisions.

A neural network designed for sequential data that remembers information from previous steps.

A programming technique where a function calls itself to solve a problem by breaking it into smaller versions of the same problem.

Deliberately trying to find flaws, vulnerabilities, or harmful outputs in an AI system before deployment.

An in-memory data store that is extremely fast, commonly used for caching and real-time features.

Improving existing code's structure and clarity without changing what it does

A pattern-matching language for finding, validating, or replacing text based on specific rules.

A geographic area containing one or more data centres where cloud providers host their services.

Tests that verify previously working features still work after new changes are made.

A type of machine learning where an AI agent learns by trial and error, receiving rewards for good actions.

The process of turning your code and data into the visual display users see

Copying data from one database server to others so multiple servers have the same information.

A storage location for your project's code and its complete history

Designing websites that automatically adjust their layout to look good on any screen size

A standard way to design APIs that uses simple web addresses and common actions like GET (read) and POST (create)

Recovering data or systems from a backup

A graph showing the percentage of users who continue using your product over time.

A technique where an AI model retrieves relevant information from a knowledge base before generating a response.

A server that sits in front of your application servers and forwards client requests to the appropriate backend.

A prioritisation framework that scores features based on Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort.

A training technique where human preferences are used to teach AI models to produce better, more helpful responses.

A high-level plan showing what features and improvements are planned and roughly when they will be delivered.

A file on a website that tells crawlers and bots which pages they are allowed or not allowed to access.

Reverting a deployment or change back to a previous working version.

A URL pattern that maps to specific code or content in your application

AWS's domain name system service for routing users to your application.

Amazon's popular cloud storage service for storing any amount of data

Software as a Service - applications you access online and pay for through subscriptions

Adding random data to a password before hashing it, so identical passwords produce different hash values.

An XML-based standard for exchanging authentication data between an identity provider and an application.

Cleaning user input to remove potentially harmful content

Automatically generating the basic structure and code for a new feature, component, or project.

Your application's ability to handle growth in users, data, or traffic

A blueprint that defines the structure of your data, including fields and their types

The gradual expansion of a project's requirements beyond what was originally planned.

A popular agile framework that organises work into fixed-length sprints with defined roles and ceremonies.

Software Development Kit - tools and libraries for working with a specific service or platform

A simplified layer of code around an SDK or API that makes it easier to use for your specific needs.

The practice of securely storing, accessing, and rotating sensitive data like passwords, API keys, and certificates.

A systematic review of your systems, code, and processes to identify security risks and compliance gaps.

A mechanism where each word in a text considers its relationship to every other word in the same text.

Using HTML elements that clearly describe their meaning and purpose, like <nav>, <article>, and <header>.

Search that understands the meaning behind your query rather than just matching exact words.

A version numbering system using MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH that communicates what type of changes were made.

Using AI to determine whether a piece of text expresses positive, negative, or neutral feelings.

Techniques to help your website appear higher in search engine results

A computer that runs continuously to handle requests, store data, and serve your application to users

React components that run on the server and send only the rendered HTML to the browser, not JavaScript.

Code or processing that happens on the server before sending results to the browser

A way to run code without managing your own servers, where the cloud provider handles everything

A script that runs in the background of a browser, enabling features like offline support and push notifications.

A way to remember information about a user while they're using your app

A recording of an individual user's interactions with your website, showing exactly what they did.

A browser feature that isolates a component's HTML and CSS from the rest of the page.

Splitting a large database across multiple servers so each one holds a portion of the data.

A web app that loads a single HTML page and dynamically updates content without full page reloads.

A file that lists all the pages on your website to help search engines find and index them

A formal commitment defining the expected performance and availability level of a service.

A quick set of basic tests that verify the most critical functions of an application are working.

Capturing the output of a component or function and comparing it against a saved reference to detect unexpected changes.

A variation of the star schema where dimension tables are further normalised into sub-dimensions.

An auditing standard that evaluates how well a company protects customer data across five trust principles.

Five design principles that help developers write code that is easier to maintain, extend, and understand.

A fixed time period, usually one to four weeks, during which a development team completes a set of planned work.

A language for communicating with databases, used to create, read, update, and delete data

An attack where malicious SQL code is inserted into application inputs to manipulate the database.

A standard for pushing updates from a server to a browser over a single HTTP connection.

Building all pages at deploy time rather than on each request

A digital certificate that enables encrypted connections and proves your website's identity.

Security technology that encrypts data sent between your website and your users

A system that lets users log in once and access multiple applications without signing in again.

Generating web pages on the server for each request, then sending complete HTML to the browser

A test environment that mirrors production for final testing before release

Anyone who has an interest in or is affected by a project, including customers, team members, and executives.

A data warehouse design pattern with a central fact table connected to dimension tables, resembling a star shape.

Data that a component keeps track of and can change over time

Techniques and tools for managing and sharing data across different parts of an application.

Analysing code for potential errors, style issues, and security problems without actually running it.

A website with pre-built pages that are the same for every visitor

A measure of confidence that a difference in test results is real and not just random chance.

Services that store files like images, documents, and videos in the cloud

A relative unit of measure for estimating the effort and complexity of a task, not the time it takes.

Sending parts of a web page to the browser as they become ready rather than waiting for the entire page.

Data that is continuously generated and processed in real time rather than in scheduled batches.

Embedding variables or expressions directly inside a string, so their values appear in the final text.

A model where all users always see the same, most up-to-date version of the data.

A popular CSS-in-JS library that lets you write actual CSS syntax inside JavaScript components.

An open-source alternative to Firebase that provides a PostgreSQL database, authentication, and real-time features.

A React feature that lets components show a loading state while waiting for data or code to load.

Artificially generated data used to train AI models when real data is scarce or sensitive.

A CSS framework that lets you style elements directly in your HTML using pre-built utility classes

The ongoing cost of working around poor code quality, making every future change slower and riskier.

The combination of programming languages, frameworks, tools, and services used to build an application.

A co-founder who leads the technology side of a startup, making architecture decisions and often building the initial product.

Shortcuts or quick fixes in code that work now but will need to be properly fixed later

A job interview that assesses a candidate's programming ability through coding challenges, system design, or problem-solving.

A document that describes how a feature or system should be built, including architecture and implementation details.

A setting that controls how creative or predictable an AI model's responses are.

A text-based interface for running commands on your computer

A popular tool for defining and provisioning cloud infrastructure using configuration files.

A development approach where you write tests before writing the actual code.

Verifying that your code works correctly through automated checks

Using AI to automatically sort text into predefined categories.

Slowing down requests instead of blocking them entirely when limits are approached

The amount of work your system can handle in a given time period

A database optimised for storing and querying data points that are timestamped, like metrics and sensor readings.

A piece of data that represents your identity or permissions

The process of breaking text into smaller pieces called tokens that an AI model can process.

A method for controlling AI text generation by only considering the k most likely next words at each step.

The dataset used to teach an AI model patterns and knowledge during its initial training.

A group of database operations that either all succeed or all fail together.

Using knowledge gained from one task to improve performance on a different but related task.

A type of AI architecture that processes text by paying attention to relationships between all words at once, rather than reading sequentially.

Automatically removing unused code from your final bundle to make it smaller.

A branching strategy where developers commit small changes directly to the main branch frequently.

The time from when a browser requests a page to when it receives the first byte of data from the server.

A fast Rust-based bundler created by Vercel as the successor to Webpack for Next.js projects.

A security method requiring two different types of verification to log in, like a password plus a phone code.

Verifying that data types match what your code expects

The compiler's ability to automatically determine the type of a variable without you explicitly stating it.

JavaScript with added type checking that catches errors before your code runs

When an AI model is too simple to capture the patterns in the data and performs poorly on everything.

A test that checks if a small piece of code works correctly in isolation

The percentage of time your application is available and working

Observing real users as they attempt to complete tasks with your product to find usability issues.

The overall experience a person has when using a product, including how easy and pleasant it is to use.

The visual elements of a product that users interact with, including buttons, menus, and layouts.

The complete path a user takes through your product to accomplish a goal.

Studying how real users behave, think, and feel to inform product design decisions.

A short description of a feature from the user's perspective, following the format 'As a [user], I want [goal], so that [reason]'.

Checking that data meets requirements before processing it

A database designed to store and quickly search through embeddings, which represent data as lists of numbers.

A situation where switching to a different technology provider becomes difficult and expensive.

A popular platform for deploying web applications, especially Next.js sites

A system that records changes to files over time, allowing you to recall specific versions later

Upgrading a server to be more powerful with more CPU, memory, or storage

Writing code with AI assistance, describing what you want in plain language and letting AI generate the code

A lightweight copy of the page that React uses to figure out what needs to change

A fast, modern build tool that provides instant development server startup and quick hot module replacement.

An isolated section of the cloud where you can launch resources in a private network you define.

Automated tools that check your systems and code for known security weaknesses.

A traditional project management approach where each phase must be completed before the next one begins.

A set of browser standards that let you create reusable custom HTML elements with encapsulated behaviour.

A JSON file that tells the browser how your web app should appear when installed on a device.

Automatically extracting data from websites using code that reads and processes web page content.

A set of metrics from Google that measure real-world user experience on web pages.

A way to run JavaScript code in the background without blocking the main page from responding to users.

An automatic notification that one app sends to another when something happens

Automatically resending a webhook if the recipient does not confirm receipt within a timeout period.

A cryptographic signature attached to webhook payloads to verify they came from the expected sender.

A widely-used JavaScript bundler that processes and optimises code, styles, images, and other assets.

A persistent connection between browser and server that allows instant two-way communication

A simple, low-detail sketch of a page layout showing where elements will be placed without visual design.

A security vulnerability where attackers inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users.

A human-friendly data format commonly used for configuration files, using indentation to show structure.

A security model that requires verification for every request, regardless of where it comes from.

An AI model performing a task it was not specifically trained on, without any examples.