The glossary we wish we had.
Precise definitions of technical terms. No marketing fluff. One page per entry.
AI · 10
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
AI architecture that combines document retrieval with LLM generation.
LLM (Large Language Model)
Large-scale language model trained on massive text corpora.
AI agent (multi-tool)
An LLM orchestrating tools (APIs, databases, code execution) to complete a task.
Embedding
Vector representation of a piece of text or media.
Vector DB
Database optimized for ANN vector queries.
Fine-tuning
Continuing training of an LLM on a specific dataset.
Eval (LLM evaluation)
Automated test suite measuring the quality of an LLM.
Inference
Running an AI model on demand (as opposed to training).
Token
Text chunking unit for an LLM (~0.75 word in English).
Hallucination
The LLM produces content that sounds plausible but is factually wrong.
Infrastructure · 10
Kubernetes
Open-source container orchestrator for scalable deployments.
Karpenter
AWS-native Kubernetes node autoscaler, alternative to Cluster Autoscaler.
GreenOps / FinOps
Practices for controlling cloud costs (and by extension carbon footprint).
OpenTofu
Community-driven open-source fork of Terraform, API-compatible.
Terraform
HashiCorp's Infrastructure as Code tool for provisioning cloud resources.
IaC (Infrastructure as Code)
Declaring your infrastructure as version-controlled code (Git).
Container
Isolated execution unit packaging code + runtime + dependencies.
Edge computing
Running code close to the user (a CDN extension).
Serverless
On-demand execution with no server management (FaaS or managed).
CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Geographically distributed cache network that serves assets.
Engineering · 11
SLO (Service Level Objective)
Quantified service quality target (latency, availability, errors).
SLI (Service Level Indicator)
Raw metric feeding an SLO (latency, uptime, request success).
SLA (Service Level Agreement)
Contractual commitment tied to an SLO, with penalties if missed.
Observability
Ability to understand what's happening in production without shipping code.
OpenTelemetry (OTel)
Unified CNCF standard for traces, metrics, and logs.
Canary deployment
Progressive rollout of a new version to a small percentage of traffic.
Feature flag
Enable or disable a feature dynamically without redeploying.
CI/CD
Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery or Deployment.
DORA metrics
Four engineering team performance metrics (Google SRE).
Runbook
Operational documentation for handling a production incident or recurring task.
Rust
Systems language with memory guarantees and no garbage collector.
Data · 4
Lakehouse
Data architecture blending data lake (flexibility) and data warehouse (performance).
dbt (data build tool)
Orchestrator for SQL transformations inside a data warehouse.
Unity Catalog
Centralized data governance from Databricks (and equivalents).
MACH architecture
Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless — composable commerce.
Robotics · 3
Methods · 4
Follow-the-Sun delivery
Team model spread across 3+ time zones for 24/7 delivery.
Staff augmentation
Model where external engineers join a client team with real ownership.
Bounded context
System zone with its own data model and ubiquitous language.
Microservices
Architecture splitting an application into independent services.
Security · 6
ISO 27001
International standard for information security management.
SOC 2
US audit report on a SaaS provider's security controls.
DevSecOps
Security embedded in every CI/CD step (shift-left).
SecNumCloud
ANSSI qualification framework for sovereign French cloud.
APPI
Act on the Protection of Personal Information — Japan's data protection law.
GDPR
EU General Data Protection Regulation.
Business · 3