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Software Engineering Guide

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1 People

1.0Introduction to Part 1: People
1.1Software engineering values
1.2Team topologies and organizational design
1.3Roles, career ladders, and growth
1.4Ways of working
1.5Decision-making and governance
1.6Decision records
1.7Engineering standards and exceptions
1.8Hiring, interviewing, and onboarding
1.9Distributed and remote work
1.10Engineering effectiveness and developer productivity
1.11Engineering management
1.12Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging
1.13Mentoring, coaching, and knowledge sharing

2 Software Programming

2.0Introduction to Part 2: Software Programming
2.1Coding standards and style
2.2Software design principles
2.3APIs and interface design
2.4Testing strategy
2.5Code review and collaboration
2.6Version control and source management
2.7Documentation
2.8Software requirements
2.9Software construction
2.10Software configuration management
2.11Software quality
2.12Software models and methods
2.13Computing, mathematical, and engineering foundations
2.14Project and repository structure
2.15Debugging and troubleshooting
2.16Performance engineering
2.17Concurrency and parallelism
2.18Dependency and supply-chain management
2.19Refactoring and technical debt
2.20Error handling and resilience patterns
2.21Type systems and static analysis

3 Systems

3.0Introduction to Part 3: Systems
3.1Architecture fundamentals
3.2Architectural styles and patterns
3.3Distributed systems
3.4Data architecture and storage
3.5Scalability, performance, and resilience
3.6Legacy modernization
3.7Software maintenance
3.8Interoperability and open standards
3.9Systems engineering
3.10Embedded and real-time systems
3.11Cloud architecture
3.12Event-driven architecture and messaging
3.13Networking and connectivity
3.14Multi-tenancy and SaaS architecture
3.15Caching and content delivery
3.16API gateways and service mesh
3.17Search and information retrieval

4 Security

4.0Introduction to Part 4: Security
4.1Security foundations and culture
4.2Application security
4.3Infrastructure and cloud security
4.4Security operations
4.5Privacy and data protection
4.6Compliance and governance
4.7Identity and access management
4.8Cryptography and key management
4.9Secure software development lifecycle
4.10Penetration testing and red teaming

5 UI/UX Design

5.0Introduction to Part 5: UI/UX Design
5.1UX foundations
5.2UI design and design systems
5.3Accessibility
5.4Content and communication design
5.5Internationalization and localization
5.6Frontend engineering
5.7Mobile application development
5.8Design research and usability testing
5.9Service design
5.10Data visualization design

6 Artificial Intelligence

6.0Introduction to Part 6: Artificial Intelligence
6.1AI strategy and readiness
6.2Machine learning engineering (MLOps)
6.3Generative AI and LLM applications
6.4AI-assisted software development
6.5Responsible and trustworthy AI
6.6AI infrastructure and operations
6.7AI agents and agentic systems
6.8AI evaluation and testing
6.9Prompt engineering and context design

7 Data, Analytics, and Insight

7.0Introduction to Part 7: Data, Analytics, and Insight
7.1Data strategy and governance
7.2Data engineering
7.3Analytics and business intelligence
7.4Product analytics and experimentation
7.5Decision science and data-informed culture
7.6Real-time and streaming data
7.7Data modeling and the semantic layer
7.8Data quality and observability
7.9Master data and reference data management

8 Automation

8.0Introduction to Part 8: Automation
8.1CI/CD and delivery
8.2Infrastructure as code and configuration
8.3Containers, orchestration, and cloud-native
8.4Platform engineering and developer experience
8.5Test and process automation
8.6Release management and progressive delivery
8.7Build systems and artifact management

9 Operations, Reliability, and Observability

9.0Introduction to Part 9: Operations, Reliability, and Observability
9.1Site reliability engineering
9.2Observability and telemetry
9.3Incident management
9.4Cost, sustainability, and green software
9.5Disaster recovery and business continuity
9.6Chaos engineering and resilience testing
9.7Capacity planning and demand forecasting
9.8On-call and operational readiness

10 Project/Product/Programme Management

10.0Introduction to Part 10: Project/Product/Program Management
10.1Portfolio and program management
10.2Risk, audit, and assurance
10.3Procurement, open source, and licensing
10.4Sustaining large and long-lived systems
10.5Ethics, accountability, and public interest
10.6Project management
10.7Agile
10.8Maturity models
10.9Innovation partnership
10.10Software engineering economics
10.11Digital sovereignty
10.12Open source vs closed source
10.13Interorganization collaboration
10.14Product management and discovery
10.15Estimation and forecasting
10.16Stakeholder management and communication
10.17Organizational change management
10.18Open source program office (OSPO) and upstream contribution

11 Flow: Discovery and Delivery Pipelines

11.0Introduction to Part 11: Flow: Discovery and Delivery Pipelines
11.1The discovery pipeline
11.2The delivery pipeline
11.3Queueing theory
11.4Objectives and key results (OKRs)
11.5Key performance indicators (KPIs)
11.6Value stream mapping and cost of delay

12 Appendices

12.0Appendices
12.1Glossary
12.2Checklists
12.3Templates
12.4Maturity self-assessment
12.5References
12.6Adoption roadmap
12.7Index

Front matter

Start here: what the guide is, who it is for, and the full contents.

Introduction

Table of contents

What is software engineering?

A guidebook of good practices for software developer teams, published under the software-engineering-guide organization.

Led by Joel Parker Henderson.

Content source Site source Contents Contributing