Software Engineer Acronyms You'll Hear at Work (Understand RFC, SEV, SLA, and More)

Why Do These Letters Matter?

Why do three letters decide whether we merge code today? Could we decode them faster together? Let's walk through the acronyms we hear daily.

When we join a new team, we drown in shorthand. Should we wait months to catch up, or can we give ourselves a map? We'll build that map right now.

Notice how each acronym points to a habit, not just a phrase. What habit do we want to encourage, and how can a tiny label remind us? Keep that question in mind as we decode.

As we read, ask one more thing: how will we teach these terms to the next teammate? If we practice the explanations, we reduce meeting friction. That is our goal.

Shipping Code Without Confusion

A Pull Request (PR) or Merge Request (MR) is our formal invitation for review. A Change List (CL) is the same bundle in some companies. We share context early so teammates can point out gaps before the merge.

Work In Progress (WIP) in a title is the caution tape across the doorway. It tells reviewers to wait while we finish tests or docs. Using it prevents unfinished work from sneaking into production.

Test-Driven Development (TDD) flips the usual order: we write a test, we write the smallest code to pass, then we refactor. It feels slow at first, but like rehearsing scales, it keeps later changes tunable. We can ask teammates which step failed whenever a test breaks.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) chain our build, test, and release steps so every merge rides the same conveyor belt. Notice how the belt catches broken builds quickly; our guide on continuous workflows shows how teams wire it up. Open Source Software (OSS) gives us shared tools for that pipeline, much like borrowing a well-made wrench instead of forging our own.

Staying Ready for Incidents

Severity levels (SEV-1, SEV-2, SEV-3) rank outages by blast radius. A SEV-1 means customers feel pain now, while a SEV-3 is a nuisance we track. Asking "What SEV is this?" keeps everyone calibrated during the scramble.

Priority labels (P0, P1, P2) tell us what to fix first once the smoke clears. A P0 interrupts every plan; some teams even reserve P00 for the truly urgent. Lower numbers equal faster action, so we plan capacity with that ladder in mind.

Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) is the answer stakeholders crave: when can they expect relief? We update the ETA as we learn more so the rest of the company stays in sync. Every revision reassures people that someone is steering.

Mean Time To Recovery (MTTR) measures how long we take to restore service, while Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) tracks how long systems stay healthy. We review both so we know whether we are firefighters or architects. For playbooks and dashboards, revisit our guide on monitoring practices.

Guardrails for Service Quality

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is the promise we make to customers about availability and response time. Saying "99.9% uptime" means we accept fewer than nine hours of downtime per year. If we miss the promise, penalties or credits often follow.

A Service Level Objective (SLO) is the stronger target we hold ourselves to internally. We might chase 99.95% uptime so we have spare room before the SLA breaks. The tighter goal guides how many incidents we can afford before we raise an alarm.

A Service Level Indicator (SLI) is the actual measurement, like login success rate or 95th percentile latency. We pipe SLIs into dashboards so alarms fire when trends dip. Without SLIs, SLAs and SLOs are slogans with no speedometer.

Think of the SLA as the contract, the SLO as our safety margin, and the SLI as the needle on the gauge. When the needle drifts, we know whether to alert customer support or schedule deeper work. This trio keeps reliability concrete.

Culture Runs on Shared Language

A Request for Comments (RFC) collects background, options, and questions for a big change. We circulate it so teammates can poke holes before code ships. The document becomes a shared memory of why we picked a path.

An Architecture Decision Record (ADR) stores the final call and its trade-offs. Without ADRs, newcomers keep asking why the system looks the way it does. Recording the context saves hours of repeat debate.

Too Long; Didn't Read (TL;DR) summaries and For Your Information (FYI) notes keep teammates aligned without demanding action. The TL;DR is the headline; the FYI says, "No response needed." Using both keeps inboxes calm.

In My Opinion (IMO) or In My Humble Opinion (IMHO) signals that we invite discussion. Looks Good To Me (LGTM) is the green light after review, yet we still stay curious about edge cases. When we balance candor and humility, feedback sticks.

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