Career Glossary
Browse 10 career terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.
10 Career Terms
- Apprenticeship
- A learning path based on working closely with more experienced practitioners while doing real tasks, rather than relying only on formal coursework. In tech,...
- Brag Document
- A running document where you record your accomplishments, impact, and contributions throughout the year. Popularized by Julia Evans. Helps you remember...
- Bucket List
- A list of things someone hopes to do or experience eventually, often before a major life milestone or simply as long-term aspiration. In tech culture the...
- Glue Work
- The essential but often invisible work that holds teams together — onboarding new members, writing documentation, coordinating across teams, improving...
- Glue Work
- Glue Work is the often invisible, unacknowledged work that holds a software team together but is not directly related to writing code or shipping features. The...
- Mentoring
- A relationship where an experienced developer guides a less experienced one through code reviews, career advice, pair programming, and knowledge sharing.
- Personal Brand
- The public image someone builds around their expertise, voice, and reputation through writing, speaking, social media, open source work, or consistent topical...
- Resume-Driven Development
- Choosing technologies or architectures based on what looks good on a resume rather than what's appropriate for the problem. Results in unnecessarily complex...
- Staff Engineer
- A senior individual contributor role above senior engineer, focused on cross-team technical leadership without direct reports. Staff engineers set technical...
- Tech Lead
- An experienced engineer who sets technical direction for a team, makes architecture decisions, mentors team members, and bridges between engineering and...
Related Topics
- Culture (3 terms in common)
- Role (2 terms in common)
- Leadership (2 terms in common)
- Team (1 terms in common)
- Mentorship (1 terms in common)
- Invisible (1 terms in common)
- Personal Goals (1 terms in common)
- Anti Pattern (1 terms in common)
- Learning (1 terms in common)
- Professional Identity (1 terms in common)
- Social Media (1 terms in common)
- Performance (1 terms in common)
- Growth (1 terms in common)
- Humor (1 terms in common)
- Community (1 terms in common)
- Undervalued (1 terms in common)