Every workplace develops its own shorthand. The phrases below come up constantly in engineering teams, and understanding them makes it easier to follow conversations, especially if you are new to the industry or joining a team with a different culture.
Daily Stand-ups
Stand-ups tend to follow a predictable rhythm. These are the phrases you will hear most often:
- “I’m working on…”: Current focus
- “Blocked by…”: Something is preventing progress
- “Need help with…”: Requesting assistance
- “Should be done by…”: Setting expectations
- “Can pair with someone on…”: Offering or requesting collaboration
Debugging Life
Debugging has its own vocabulary, often delivered with a healthy dose of humour:
- “Digging into the logs”: Investigating an issue
- “Found the root cause”: Identified the source problem
- “It works on my machine”: Classic debugging frustration (usually means an environment difference)
- “Needs more coffee”: Complex problem ahead
- “Rubber duck debugging”: Explaining the problem out loud to find the answer yourself
Code Reviews
Code reviews are where most written shorthand lives:
- LGTM: Looks Good To Me (approval)
- Nit: Minor suggestion, not a blocker
- Consider: Alternative approach suggestion
- TIL: Today I Learned
- Makes sense: Acknowledging the approach
Production Issues
When something breaks in production, communication becomes urgent and direct:
- “All hands on deck”: Emergency situation requiring everyone’s attention
- “Who’s on call?”: Seeking the designated responder
- “Rolling back”: Reverting changes to restore stability
- “Quick hotfix”: An immediate, targeted fix is needed
- “Monitoring the situation”: Watching metrics after a change or incident
Team Chat
The general-purpose phrases that fill the spaces between technical work:
- “Quick question”: Requesting fast input
- “For context”: Providing background information before the actual question
- “TL;DR”: Summary of a long message (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
- “Heads up”: Important notice coming
- “Anyone around?”: Checking who is available to help
Being Blocked
Communicating blockers clearly helps the team help you faster:
- “Stuck on…”: Need direct assistance
- “Blocked by…”: An external dependency is the issue
- “Waiting for…”: Pending someone else’s work
- “Need access to…”: Permission required
- “Can someone review…”: Awaiting feedback before proceeding
Polite Pushback
Sometimes you need to say no without damaging the relationship. These templates help:
"Thanks for the request. Currently focused on [priority]. Could we revisit this next sprint?"
"Interesting idea! Given our current bandwidth, could we schedule this for later?"
"I'd love to help, but I'm deep in [project]. Could [teammate] assist?"
Status Updates
A consistent format makes status updates scannable:
"Quick update:
- What: [brief description]
- Status: [progress]
- Blockers: [if any]
- Need: [what you need]"
Meeting Speak
Meetings have their own dialect. Recognising these phrases helps you navigate them:
- “Let’s take this offline”: Discuss later, outside this meeting
- “Hard stop at…”: Must leave at a specific time
- “Double-click on that”: Explore the topic in more depth
- “Circle back to…”: Return to a previous point
- “Action items?”: What concrete tasks come out of this meeting
Time Management Abbreviations
These abbreviations show up in chat and calendar events constantly:
- EOD: End of Day
- COB: Close of Business
- OOO: Out of Office
- AFK: Away From Keyboard
- Back in 5: Short break
Common Idioms
Workplace idioms you will encounter, especially in cross-functional meetings:
- “Putting out fires”: Handling urgent issues reactively
- “In the weeds”: Deep in complex details
- “Moving the goalposts”: Changing requirements mid-stream
- “Technical debt”: Code that works but needs refactoring
- “Scope creep”: Requirements expanding beyond the original plan
Positive Responses
Quick affirmations that keep conversations moving:
- “On it!”: Taking action immediately
- “Ship it!”: Ready for deployment
- “Solid work”: Genuine compliment on quality
- “Makes sense”: Confirming understanding
- “TIL”: Learned something new from the conversation
Keep it professional, clear, and friendly. When in doubt, overcommunicate, but keep it concise.