This is a list of acronyms and terms that are commonly used in the software industry. While I use this acronyms in my posts, I will always spell them out the first time I use them in the post.
Software Industry Acronyms
| Acronym | Term | More Information |
|---|---|---|
| DORA | DevOps Research and Assessment | DORA metrics are a common developer productivity measurement framework. To learn more: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/using-the-four-keys-to-measure-your-devops-performance |
| DRI | Directly Responsible Individual | Gitlab Handbook: Directly Responsible Individuals See also: STL |
| EM | Engineering Manager | Acronym commony used by San Francisco Bay Area companies for engineering managers. See also: SDM |
| IC | Individual Contributor | A generic term to refer to anyone that does not directly manage people. |
| JD | Job Description | A generic term used to describe a public job description for an open role. |
| OKRs | Objectives and Key Results | While I will eventually blog about this topic, in the meantime, you should learn about it directly from the source by buying Measure What Matters: OKRs Beware: while there are a lot of blogs about OKRs, many of them “get it wrong.” |
| PdM | Product Manager | https://www.icagile.com/certification/product-management |
| PgM | Program Manager | https://www.pmi.org/certifications/program-management-pgmp |
| PjM | Project Manager | https://www.ncarb.org/pass-the-are/prepare/project-management |
| PM | Program Manager, Project Manager, or Product Manager | Honestly, an ambiguous acronym that should be avoided. |
| PMM | Product Marketing Manager | |
| PMO / PgMO | Program Management Office | PMO is another ambiguous acronym, as I have seen the “P” stand for Project instead. However, on this blog, I use it to mean PgMO, and I may say TPMO tongue-in-cheek to refer to when TPMs report to TPMs. |
| PO | Product Owner | This is a great post on PO vs PM and why they shouldn’t both exist. |
| SDE | Software Development Engineer | Acronym commonly used by Seattle-based companies for software engineers. See also: SWE |
| SDET | Software Development Engineer in Test | https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/software-development-engineer-in-test-sdet-role |
| SDLC | Software Development Life Cycle | https://www.synopsys.com/glossary/what-is-sdlc.html |
| SDM | Software Development Manager | Acronym commonly used by Seattle-based companies for software engineering managers. See also: EM |
| SPACE | SPACE is a developer productivity measurement framework that isn’t an acronym despite being capitalized. To learn more: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3454124 |
|
| STL | Single-Threaded Leader | Single-Threaded Leaders at Amazon See also: DRI |
| STO | Single-Threaded Owner | Single-Threaded Leaders at Amazon |
| SWE | Software Engineer | Acronym commonly used by San Francisco Bay Area companies for software engineers. See also: SDE |
| TPM / TPgM | Technical Program Manager | So, What is a Technical Program Manager (TPM), Anyway? |
| WBR / MBR / QBR | Weekly / Monthly / Quarterly Business Reviews | A process of recurring business reviews popularized by Amazon: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-learnt-scale-amazon-yasharth-mishra/ See also Will Larson’s MBR template: https://infraeng.dev/business-review-template/ |
| WoW / MoM / YoY | Week over Week / Month over Month / Year over Year | A simple way to explain a difference in something over a particular timeframe. |
| XP | eXtreme Programming | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_programming |
Finance & Credit Card Acronyms
| Acronym | Term | More Information |
|---|---|---|
| AF | Annual Fee | |
| CSP | Chase Sapphire Preferred | |
| CSR | Chase Sapphire Reserve | |
| DR | Dave Ramsey | A person who took advantage of bankruptcy law to now be a Christian-finance influencer, perhaps the most popular such influencer on the internet. He preaches strict “rules,” discussion or debate of which will get you banned from online communities. These rules are overly strict, but they appeal to the masses rather than the individual. He is a useful resource to get out of debt, but a horrible resource to gain positive net worth. His advice is not financially independent, as he will sell you his own low-performing investment vehicles. |
| HELOC | Home Equity Line of Credit | |
| MR | Membership Rewards | AmEx’s points system. |
| NW | Net Worth | |
| UR | Ultimate Rewards | Chase’s points system. |